Many people in both our culture and in the church celebrate a fairy tale Christmas that is disconnected from the stories of Jesus’s birth in the Bible. Even worse, we teach this fairy tale Christmas to our children. Even in the church. The REAL story of Christ’s birth is far more helpful and hopeful to us than the fairy tale version we immerse ourselves in every Christmas season. We do ourselves and our children a far better service to learn, teach, and live by the REAL Christmas story, the stories of Christmas found in the Bible. For the REAL story is much like our real, messy lives, unlike the sugar-coated version the culture celebrates. In this devotional guide, retired pastor Bob Johnson “goes rogue” by using the season of Advent to examine the REAL stories of Christmas. In the process, he uncovers how God, who brought about Messiah’s birth in a dark and difficult time, comes into our messy, less-than-picture-perfect lives as well.