But poor Mary — what happened to her? Why, a veritable convention broke out! First there were the animals already in the barn — “the cattle are lowing, the poor Baby wakes”.

Then the shepherds arrived with their flocks — you don’t think they left them out in the pastures unguarded, do you? Those sheep were the only wealth they had, they wouldn’t just leave them there.

It was those damned Angels with their trumpets, and their harps of gold, bending near the earth to sing “hark! Glory to the newborn King!”; oh, yeah, the Angels did a great fucking job. By the time they were finished singing on high, with the mountains echoing the “joyful strains” to “come to Bethlehem and see”, heaven and nature singing and repeating the sounding joy and the song high above the trees with a voice as big as the seas, everyone and their brother — but no sisters to tend to Mary — had been called to traipse through the cow barn and stare at the Baby.