We have a request from Joshua–One Quiet Moment, by GLAD. Sorry for the delay in posting it–I just had to get that book finished.
Come one, come all, to our first annual Christmas Carol Contest! A lot of you haven’t played yet–don’t worry about running out of Christmas hymns, that just ain’t gonna happen.
From Australian TV, a few years ago–Hugh Jackman, David Hobson, and Peter Cousen performing We Three Kings: and if this doesn’t pump you up for Christmas, I don’t know what will.
Hey! One thing we absolutely don’t have to worry about is running out of great Christmas music. And yet our first Christmas Carol Contest has slowed way down after just a week or so. The leading carol is still on top with just 25 views.
So many of you have never requested a hymn–so why not break the ice now?
How to win: If, say, on Dec. 14 you requested Gesu Bambino and it got 32 views that day, and no other hymn got that many on any other day, then you’d be the winner.
The prize is an autographed copy of one of my books. If you’ve already got them all, you can hold out for No. 11, The Temptation, which is just about ready to be published.
But we all win if we proclaim the birth of Jesus Christ Our Lord, and help this Christmas season draw the human heart to Him.
This, one of my very earliest memories, came rushing back to me this morning as I drove to the Woodbridge Mall.
I was a little tiny boy, cuddled up on the couch with my Uncle Bernie, in my Grammy’s living room, complete with Christmas tree, and with It Came Upon a Midnight Clear playing somewhere in the background, probably on the radio; and Bernie was reading to me from a book of Christmas stories. When he finished, he turned on the TV set and we watched A Christmas Carol–the old one, with Reginald Owen as Scrooge–on the tiny black-and-white screen. I was too young to understand the movie, although my uncle did help me to see it was a story about a bad man who changed, and became good. I do remember Scrooge in his nightshirt meeting the Ghost of Christmas Past.
And this memory brings tears to my eyes, because everything about it was just so good, so right: but my uncle and my Grammy, they’ve long since passed on and their house is a place I can’t go to anymore, long for it as I may. And to this day I love A Christmas Carol, and It Came Upon a Midnight Clear. I even remember some of the pictures in the book, of angels singing.
So much beauty, so much blessing. God knew what He was doing when he gave us Christmas.
(Video sung by St. Peter’s Choir)
If I haven’t fumbled this, as I so often do, it’s now Thursday morning and I’ve gone out Christmas-shopping while you’re hearing this lovely rendition by Josh Groban of a Christmas standby, It Came Upon a Midnight Clear. Thank you, Erlene, for requesting it.
I have just enough time, before I dash out for Christmas-shopping, to post this Advent hymn requested by Phoebe: On Jordan’s Bank. And if I don’t hurry, I won’t be able to find a parking space. Thank you, Phoebe.
Our friend “SlimJim” asked for Noel in some language other than English: so here it is in French, sung by the Grise sisters (there should be an accent over the “e”, but I don’t have one on my keyboard). I think The First Noel was originally a French Christmas carol anyway, so we didn’t have far to go.
Our Christmas Carol Contest has slowed way down today, so let me try to give it a jump.
On This Day Earth Shall Ring was first sung in the 14th century, Geoffrey Chaucer’s time, when it had Latin lyrics and was called Personent Hodie. Here we have it sung by the St. Malachy College Choir in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Turn up the volume for this one! You’ll be glad you did.
I’ve been so busy running our Christmas Carol Contest, I totally forgot to run my annual commercial for my books. I hope I haven’t put it off till too late.
Anyway, my books make really nice Christmas presents for family and friends. Even better, if you like them, we have ten of them in print by now, with No. 11, The Temptation, coming soon.
The series starts with Bell Mountain, and if you haven’t read it yet, now’s a good time to grab it. The adventure begins with two children, Jack and Ellayne, becoming convinced that God has called them to climb a mountain that no one’s ever climbed, and to ring a bell, placed on the summit some 2,000 years ago, that will usher in the end of the world–and they don’t know a professional assassin’s on their trail, whose mission is to stop them. Nor is there anyone to help them along the way but an old hermit who may not be quite sane.
How cool is that?
All right, it is a little tacky, me advertising my own books; but I don’t know who else is gonna do it. I do know that many of you who visit this blog regularly have already read the whole series. But many of you are new here, so why not check it out? Just click “Books,” and you’ll get all the information you need.
In fact, you can order them from right here on the blog. You can buy them direct from the publisher, if you click that little shopping cart icon, or click the amazon/Kindle icon and order them from there. Easy as pie! They’re not in bookstores, though, so you’ve got to buy them online.
And now I’ve got to get No. 12, His Mercy Endureth Forever, typed up and sent to Susan before Christmas.
This has been a favorite for a lot of people, Bing Crosby and David Bowie together, singing The Little Drummer Boy with Peace on Earth–sort of a complicated arrangement, but these two were pros.
Requested by Marcia.
Requested by Jan–Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence, sung by the choir at Manchester Cathedral, in England: traditional French melody, from Picardy (just across the Channel).
Come one, come all, to our first Christmas Carol Contest! Don’t rely on just a few readers to do all the work.
I don’t know. Maybe I should offer a cooler prize, instead of an autographed copy of one of my books.
Anyhow, the business at hand is to proclaim the birth of Jesus Christ as the focal point of human history, as something that really happened, Word of God made flesh, Holiness born as one of us–and in a stable, no less! But to the King of Kings the most opulent palace in the world would fall as far short of His glory as any stable would. And it’d be a lot less cozier.