It's always the most fun to tell the Christmas story to preschoolers. To them, it is still the best tale ever. Even though they have probably heard it before, it's still fresh. It's still new. It's still real.

There were 18 little ones around me as I taught that morning during Advent. One of them was Alex, a cute little blond headed boy infamous for having pulled the fire alarm during the family night service - twice. Alex was swept along to Bethlehem with Mary and Joseph, finding no room in the inn, but a nice warm place where the animals slept. He watched with the lambs as Mary told Joseph that the baby was going to be born right away. He moved to the manger, where a cow ate the soft hay. "Finally," I told the children, "in a moment, it happened. The baby was born, and it was baby Jesus."

And then I heard Alex say, quite eloquently, "Yay."

Softly, he said it. Not with exuberance, not with excitement, only with conviction. It was deep, visceral. It came from his soul. Had he been a bit older, he would have known to say "Hallelujah!" or "Amen!"

He didn't have the words, however, so he whispered the best word he knew. "Yay."

I'm sure our pastor gave a profound message that Sunday morning, but I'm not sure anything he said would have matched the wisdom that escaped from the heart of little Alex. I only wish I could distill his fervor, and use it to spike the Christmas spirit into each of us.

Merry Christmas. Christ is born.

Yay.