The annual children's Christmas Pageant went well. Mary and Joseph came into Bethlehem, on cue. There they were met by the nine-year-old innkeeper who dutifully informed them that. though he would love to help them out if he could, there was, again this year, "no room in the ion." Sorry. No vacancy, like the sign says out front.

But then he looked again at Mary and Joseph, who really did look tired from their journey, and the Innkeeper blurted out. “But there's a great motel with cable just around the comer from the church!"

And the pageant was a shambles. That's not the way the story of Mary, Joseph, and the Innkeeper is supposed to go.

Or is it?

You know by heart how the story goes. Mary and Joseph come to Bethlehem for the government's enrollment and there, because with everyone from out-of…