We had our own Christmas Eve miracle eight Christmases ago.

Like the first Christmas miracle, ours was a miracle of birth. Only our miracle didn�t take place in a stable; it happened in a modern, state-of-the-art hospital. Instead of a manger filled with straw, our Christmas baby lay down her sweet head in a comfortably warm, carefully sterilized bassinet. And while there were no cattle or shepherds to attend the birth of our precious little one, there were plenty of nurses, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.

Not to mention the occasional wise man/doctor poking a head in.

From the east, as I recall.

Now, I know there are tens of thousands of births every day on this planet, and there was nothing that made our experience any more �miraculous� than any other. But for me, it was a magical moment of transformation. Right before my eyes my son became a father, my wife became a grandmother, my daughters became aunts, my youngest son became an uncle and that basketball in my daughter-in-law�s tummy became The World�s Most Adorable Granddaughter.

Miraculously.

There were some extraordinary moments during that long and . . . well, almost sacred Christmas Eve. No, we didn�t have herald angels harking in the heavens, or a new star overhead to light the way to baby Becky. But we did have 8-year-old Jon, excitedly telling everyone: �I�m an uncle! I�m an uncle!� We had two grandmothers — one a veteran, one a first-timer — taking turns monitoring the hospital staff to make sure they were taking proper care of �their� granddaughter. And we had two families coming together at the nursery window to �ooh!� and �ahh!� at the little dark-haired bundle who represented their confluence.

For me, however, the most profound moments involved my son: the joy in his eyes as he held up his daughter for all the family to see; the tender concern etched on his face as he oversaw the poking and probing and assorted testing of little Becky; and the peaceful contentment that emanated from him as he sat in a hospital rocking chair holding his sweet, slumbering child.