One Imperfect Christmas - Christmas is the season of miracles, but when blame and guilt keep two people apart, sometimes a miracle needs a helping hand. Natalie Pearce loves Christmas so much she’d gladly make it a year-round celebration—until her mother suffers a massive stroke while taking down the decorations. Natalie’s guilt over not being there to help her mom soon builds a wall that separates her from the rest of her family, including her husband Daniel and their teenage daughter. As the next December approaches, the last thing Natalie wants to be reminded of is another Christmas season. Will her family’s tenacious love and an unexpected Christmas gift from her mother help Natalie mend the broken pieces of their lives?
Stories Behind the Best-Loved Songs of Christmas - Behind the Christmas songs we love to sing, lie fascinating stories that will enrich your holiday celebration. Taking you inside the nativity of over thirty favorite songs and carols, Ace Collins introduces you to people you’ve never met, stories you’ve never heard, and meanings you’d never have imagined. The next time you and your family sing “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen,” you’ll have a new understanding of its message and popular roots. You’ll discover how “Angels from the Realms of Glory,” with its sublime lyrics and profound theology, helped usher in a quiet revolution in worship. You’ll learn the strange history of the haunting and powerful “ O Holy Night,” including the song’s surprising place in the history of modern communications. And you’ll step inside the life of Mark Lowry and find out how he came to pen the words to the contemporary classic “Mary, Did You Know?” Still other songs such as “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” trace back to mysterious origins—to ninth-century monks, nameless clergy, and unknown commoners of ages past. Joining hands with such modern favorites as “White Christmas” and “The Christmas Song,” they are part of the legacy of inspiration, faith, tears, love, and spiritual joy that is Christmas. From the rollicking appeal of “Jingle Bells” to the tranquil beauty of “Silent Night,” the great songs of Christmas contain messages of peace, hope, and truth. Each in its own way expresses a facet of God’s heart and celebrates the birth of his greatest gift to the world—Jesus, the most wonderful Christmas Song of all.
A Dog Named Christmas - When Todd McCray, a developmentally challenged young man still living on his parents’ Kansas farm, hears that a local animal shelter is seeking temporary homes for its dogs during the days leading to Christmas, he knows exactly what he wants for the holidays. His father objects, but Todd’s persistence quickly wins out. Soon the McCray’s are the short-term foster family for a lovable pooch the young man names Christmas. But what about all the other dogs who will be forced to spend the Yuletide season in cages? In the days that follow, Todd uses his special gifts of persuasion to encourage his hometown to participate in the “Adopt a Dog for Christmas Program.” What follows from his small act of kindness will teach his family, and his community, about peace on earth and good will toward men—and animals.
A Better December - Combining true stories with pen-and-ink illustrations, this book uncovers our December longings. In bite-sized chapters of Solomon’s advice to frazzled, lonely people at Christmas, Steve Estes presents the ancient sage as penning his own blockbuster Proverbs to help future readers through the year’s shortest days and longest nights. Meant to be shared with all who wish for a better December, it points the way to real comfort and a true home.
As we are winding down to the last four books of Christmas, I would really like to talk about joy. Over these last couple weeks I have talked about how God's promised peace and His love everlasting are very important concepts when thinking about the Christmas story. So when I was deciding on what books to read through this week, joy seemed to be a common Christmas concept in these four books in particular. I guess I probably assumed that due to the key words in the titles: Perfect, Best-loved songs, Dog, and Better. I don’t know about you, but the idea of any of those words in my life usually brings me a whole ton of joy. Little did I know that the people in these books had to go through a long journey of hardship before reaching their point of joy. At the beginning of One Imperfect Christmas the joy that the characters feel goes away faster than the pain. But just like in most stories the character must discover for themselves how to find their joy again(even if it takes 100 pages to get there!). The next book that heightened my Christmas spirit was, Stories Behind the Best-Loved Songs of Christmas. What I found inside were not the back-stories I was expecting from these classic carols. Many of them were either written during a time of war, sadness, or even a time of great understanding in the writers’ lives. I think my favorite book out of all four of these would have to be A Dog Named Christmas. Not just because there is a dog involved, but also because the story itself is really good. So come on down to Cross Reference and check out some of these joy-filled books. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas season and even more well wishes for the new year!!!