If you can picture it, then picture this:
Phil Robertson opening his eyes to his very first Christmas morning in Heaven.
No ducks to call.
No swamp fog.
No riverbank chill.
Just a light so warm it feels like coming home after a thousand miles.
He sits up, blinks once, then grins — that famous gap-toothed grin that’s launched a thousand stories — and hollers across the brightness:
“Miss Kay, you should see the spread!”
But this time, the table isn’t a wooden one in a Louisiana kitchen.
This one stretches farther than any river he ever paddled.
The plates never empty.
The sweet tea never runs dry.
And the air feels like every good thing he ever prayed for finally answered.
There’s a hush, a glow, a presence he recognizes without needing an introduction.
At the head of the table sits the Guest of honor —
the Child born in Bethlehem,
the Carpenter who carried a cross,
the King who conquered death.
Phil, hands rough from a lifetime in the woods, lays down his old Bible — the same one he carried into duck blinds, onto back porches, through storms and seasons. Its pages are worn thin, edges curled from rainwater and river mist, every margin scribbled with notes from a man who wrestled and walked with God through it all.
And then he hears it.
A voice stronger than thunder, softer than mercy, familiar in the way truth is familiar:
“Well done, good and faithful redneck.”
Not mocking.
Not joking.
Just Jesus speaking Phil’s language — the language of home.
Phil laughs, wipes the corner of his eye, and pulls up a chair.
For the first time, he doesn’t need to preach, or teach, or warn, or guide.
He just gets to sit.
To rest.
To breathe in the glory of a Christmas morning that will never end.
And somewhere down on Earth, Miss Kay feels a warmth sweep over her — the kind that tells her he made it safely home.
A heavenly Christmas.
A faithful servant.
A table set by the King Himself.
If you’d like, I can continue this into a longer heavenly tribute, a family reflection narrative, or a spoken-word style monologue.