I grew up hearing the Christmas story at church.  Dad preached it, the Sunday School teachers told us about, and in those days. we even heard the story on the Charlie Brown Christmas Special.  Most of what we're familiar with as the Christmas story comes only from Matthew and Luke, and there is surprisingly little overlap in what each of them tells us.  I wanted to write out what we know from each of them, and I put in some information I got from other sources, and a little speculation of my own, as follows:

The angel Gabriel appears to Mary in Nazareth and tells her she is going to become pregnant as a virgin, and that her son will be named Jesus, and he  will be the son of God, born as a mortal man.  Mary was already betrothed to Joseph at this time.  Luke 1:23-38.  Gabriel's appearance is only recounted by Luke.

An angel appears to Joseph and tells him that Mary's baby is conceived of the Holy Ghost, and that he should not be afraid to marry her.  The angel quotes Isaiah's prophecy that a virgin shall be with child.  Matthew 1:18-25.  Only Matthew talks about the angel that appears in Joseph's dream.

A decree goes out from Caesar Augustus to register the whole world.  This meant the whole Roman world.  A lot has been written about this event.  The pertinent part for my purpose here is to know that the decree would go out one year, and the registration would take place the following year.  People had to go to their "home town" to register, but could do so pretty much any time they chose during the year following the decree.  Even back then, it is likely that most people put it off until the last minute.

So sometime during the year following the decree, Joseph took Mary to Bethlehem to register.  There was no room in the inn.  Again, only Luke tells us about this, and he calls  it "the" inn.  That makes it sound as if there was only one place to stay in Bethlehem.  There is nothing about an innkeeper offering to let them stay in his stable out back. This is assumption.  It could as easily be that some resident of Bethlehem offered them a place to stay.  It probably wasn't in town, but somewhere on the outskirts.  Jesus was born, wrapped in swaddling clothes, and laid in a manger.  This is what is in Luke 2:1-7.

That very night, an angel appears to some shepherds out in the fields and tells them that Christ has been born.  Then a multitude of angels appear and praise God.  After this is all over, the shepherds decide to go into Bethlehem and see the newborn Christ.  They find Mary and Joseph, and Jesus lying in the manger, and they tell it around town.  Then they get back to their sheep.  Luke 2:8-20.

Eight days later Jesus is taken into Jerusalem to be circumcised, as was the custom.  He was officially named Jesus at this time.  We don't know if they were still staying in that stable at this time, or if some room had opened up at that inn.  But we know that they were still in Bethlehem.  At the end of 40 days, which was the length of time required for a new mother to be purified under the law of Moses, Mary and Joseph again take Jesus into Jerusalem to present him at the temple.  All firstborn males belonged to the Lord and were to be presented to the Lord.  Here, Simeon and Anna meet Jesus and recognize him as Messiah.  The eight days and the 40 days are recorded only in Luke 2:21-38.  They had not returned to Nazareth at all yet.  And we don't know where they were staying by this time.

But we do know from the end of the very next verse, Luke 2:39, that after the presentation, Mary, Joseph and Jesus went home to Nazareth in Galilee.  In verse 41, we are further told that Jesus' parents went to Jerusalem for the passover every year.  Why would Luke think we needed to know that?  Maybe so we will know that as the story continues, and we find Mary and Joseph regularly in Bethlehem, we can make a really good guess as to what time of year they are there.

Next chronologically is that the wise men from the east show up in Jerusalem looking for the one born King of the Jews.  Herod consults his own wise men and reports to the visitors that this new king was to be born in Bethlehem, and he sends them there to look for Jesus.  To Bethlehem.  This is in Matthew 2:1-12, and only in Matthew.

But...after 40 days, Joseph and family had left Bethlehem and gone home. So it seems that the family was back in Bethlehem when the wise men from the east arrived.  It would seem reasonable to think that maybe they arrived around Passover, which would be early Spring, while the whole family was once again in Bethlehem.  There, the wise men found them, and presented their gifts.  This could have been anything from a year after Jesus was born, all the way to two years after.  The reason it might have been as long as two years has to do with Herod, and is stated a few paragraphs below.  This also assumes that Joseph mixed the annual Passover trip to Jerusalem with registering in Bethlehem, as required by Augustus.

Whenever it really was, the wise men find Jesus, and Matthew says they were in a house.  Perhaps the house of whomever had let them use his stable just a little while before?  It isn't recorded, but it makes you wonder why Joseph would have stayed in Bethlehem again instead of in Jerusalem for the Passover celebration - if I'm right in assuming that is why they were there.  Remember that Bethlehem is about six miles past Jerusalem if you're coming from Nazareth.  Nazareth was about a 90 mile walk, yet this time at least, Joseph added six more to it and stayed in Bethlehem again.  If he had close relatives there, why didn't they let him and Mary stay there when she was 9 months pregnant?  Seems more likely this was not family, but someone with whom they had formed an attachment.

After the wise men leave, Joseph is warned in a dream to get out of town right away and go to Egypt.  Again, this is only in Matthew.  This warning is so urgent that Joseph gets up in the middle of the night, and runs for Egypt with Mary and Jesus.  Joseph didn't go to Bethlehem planning to abandon his home in Nazareth.  He wouldn't have had his carpenter tools to make a living in Egypt while they were there.  He would have been abandoning his home in Nazareth, and no one there would have had any idea why he didn't come back from Passover.  In any case, Mary, Joseph and Jesus head for Egypt with little besides the clothes on their back. 

And it's a good thing they left so quickly.  Matthew tells us that Herod was so angry when the wise men didn't come back and tell him where the child was that he had every male under the age of two in Bethlehem, and everywhere around it, killed.  All of them.  He picked two and under because of this:  7 Then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star had appeared. [Mat 2:7 ESV]  He made sure that every male child born from the time this star appeared right up through the current time was killed.  So he went back two full years.

The fact that he killed any that were two and under makes you think this would have been the second Passover after Jesus' birth, making Jesus two years old when the wise men came.  If that's even when this happened.  I'm guessing at why Joseph was back in Bethlehem.  It does seem to all fit together though.  Herod had no idea that the King of the Jews, born in Bethlehem sometime before, actually lived in Nazareth.  He just assumed that this new King was still living in the tiny town where he was born, or very nearby, and he killed all the children anywhere near there based on a false assumption.

Mark tells us nothing at all about the birth of Jesus.  Mark's first comment about Jesus is when Jesus came from Nazareth to John to be baptized.  Jesus was a grown man already when Mark first tells about him. 

When John starts his gospel, he starts before Jesus was born, then skips later in chapter 1 to Jesus being baptized by John the Baptist.  John tells us nothing about the birth.