Christmas Time: It’s All About Jesus,

Christmas Time: It’s All About Jesus, by Sue Barksdale

Illustrated by Alicia Young

(Aneko Press, 2015), pb., 28 pp.

Ages 2-9

You might be tempted to overlook this book as just one more Christmas story with simply a cute story & very little biblical content. But, that would be a real mistake! I was pleasantly surprised by this one.  The author retells the Christmas story following very closely the accounts from Matthew and Luke in poetic form. I was impressed by how careful she was to follow the biblical text, and the nice poetry made the reading even more fun and engaging.

Part of the Christmas tradition in our house is retelling the Christmas story on Christmas morning. The form of the retelling has grown with our children, often involving them acting out, with little figurines, what I read. If we had had this little book when our kids were smaller, I would have used this for our reading. It is that good.

So, as you prepare for Christmas this year, this is a fun, readable book- one which your children might continue to read for themselves, as mine have. We warmly commend it to you as we prepare to celebrate the wonder of the Incarnation.

In fact, I have an extra copy to give away! Pass on word about this review and you will be entered in the drawing to receive a free copy. You can link to this on Twitter (@rvannest), Facebook, or your own site. Provide your link in the comments here to insure I see it and enter you in the contest.

Advent books

Over the years I have mentioned here a variety of books for Advent and Christmas and these can be found here. As I’ve mentioned before, among all of these books and numerous nice new Advent books we continue to return each year to Christ in Christmas: A Family Advent Celebration (you can see my previous post on the book here). The book is wonderfully simple, giving us key texts to read and then two songs to sing for each week. This allows us to pursue conversation about the songs and texts to whatever degree fits each setting according to ages, time, etc.

Our children now look forward to this during the year, and in the evenings it is not uncommon to hear my younger ones say, “Let’s hurry and get things done so we can do Advent!” The picture here is of Timothy, my youngest (7 yrs old) on the big night when he had his first reading this year.  I had not thought much of it, but it was all he could talk about the day leading up to it (for some reason he also wanted to wear his Thanksgiving puppet as a hat!). This simple little book has been a great help to us in establishing this tradition in our family, and we commend it to you.

Our Favorite Advent Book

It is a little late to be recommending Advent resources, but in case anyone is searching, our favorite resource continues to be Christ in Christmas: A Family Advent Celebration. We don’t really use the four main stories by the prominent authors. What we like is simply the daily Scripture readings and the two carols a week. The readings have been well selected touching many of the prophetic passages- more than are typically noticed. Reading these together provide opportunity for rich discussion. Then it is nice to sing two carols each week. Singing the same ones through the week gives enough time to learn or refresh your memory on the song and to let its truths sink in.

Many more advent books have come out in recent years and I am glad for them. Our favorite, though, is still this one.

Christ in Christmas: A Family Advent Celebration

Christ in Christmas: A Family Advent Celebration
By James Dobson, Charles Swindoll, James Montgomery Boice, R. Sproul
(NavPress, 1989), pb.

This has been our favorite and most used advent book since we have had children (and perhaps before).

The book is arranged in four parts, one for each of the weeks of advent. Each week contains an essay by one of the authors listed and has a specific Christmas carol. Then each day of the week has a specific Scripture reading. The Sunday reading is typically longer than the others. This provides you with a specific reading for each day of the season. Questions are provided after the essays and there are some suggested family activities.

We have not often used any of the activities. The best part of the book is simply its arranged readings. It gives you a great list of Old Testament messianic texts. Our family has used the book in various ways. It is a great resource.

Christmas/Advent Books

A reader has written asking me about posting on some books on Advent or Christmas. Great question! I have meant to post on some but have been behind.
I previously commented on Gabriel’s Magic Ornament, written by one of my colleagues. It is a really good book.

I will be posting on some other books in the next few days.