While the standards are playing on the radio, here’s a great Christmas song you won’t hear all the time.

The Root’s Stephen A.  Crockett, Jr. has compiled “an irreverent guide to some Christmas classics.” 

NPR has selected their list of Hidden Christmas Tracks for 2008 at Holiday Music from All Songs Considered.

Maria’s Hidden Christmas Tracks:

As we finished trimming the tree this weekend, it reminded me of last year’s delightful surprise when my then-7-year-old daughter took it upon herself to decorate our tree.  (Praying Big, December 2007)

Today’s scripture reminds us:

Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.  Mark 10:15

It’s almost a cliche to say the Christmas season is for children.  I’d like to say this season is for the child in all of us–the sense of wonder and delight at the richness of life, and the ability to live in the present moment without distraction or preoccupation.  The children around us are a great reminder to live life this way.  If you encounter a child today, do your best not to brush past them on to the next “important task.”  Praise God for their blessed reminder to draw closer to God’s kingdom by living life with the delight of a child.

USA Today offers a wonderful guide to gift selection–gifts of good health, and gifts from the heart.  There are gift suggestions for aging relatives, for those trying to lose weight and get fit, and others.  It’ll inspire you to give a thoughtful gift and skip the easy route of the gift card!

Still searching for the right format for daily prayer?  Try this wonderful process designed by Jesuit priests in Ireland.  You can pray at your computer, and be connected to the daily readings Christians around the world are praying.

TV specials were a big part of Christmas as I grew up.  They were on only once a year, so I waited for each with great anticipation.  Wikia has put together a guide to the 2008 Christmas specials.  When I was a kid, I only had 3 stations to keep track of; now with hundreds of cable channels, Wikia has done an impressive job keeping track of the favorites and the new ones, too.

http://christmas-specials.wikia.com/wiki/2008_Christmas_Specials_TV_Schedule

Maria Rodgers O’Rourke, author of Prepare Your Heart for a Great Christmas, will sign copies of her book Sunday, December 14th at Borders, Sunset Hills, from 1-3 p.m. Stop by and say hello and get some shopping done!  With reflections that take us into the New Year, the book is a wonderful gift for someone you love or yourself.

Borders Sunset Hills is located on Watson Road between Lindbergh and Highway 270.  See you there!

Today we’re taking out the rest of the decorations and getting the Christmas tree up in the living room.  If I think of how much there is to do, I just get tired!  So, I’m taking it one task at a time and remaining reasonably calm!

I’m grateful today for Christmas music, my daughter’s joy and the health that I trust is returning to my husband who’s down with the cold and sore throat the girls had last week.  I’m also grateful for the delightful party we attended last night that helped lift me out of a serious funk. 

Please pray for Steve’s mom who’s back in the hospital battling cancer.  This is the second holiday season in a row that she’s been hospitalized.  We lift her up and pray for healing and strength.

In Prepare Your Heart for a Great Christmas we read today:

There’s an empty bucket in each of us.  Blaise Pascal called it a “God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator.”

This season, my family’s bucket is bigger than ever.  We have multiple concerns in nearly every area of our lives: financial, physical, emotional.  We’re surrendering to circumstances we cannot control.  The emptiness left by this surrender will be filled by God the creator.  We trust.  We wait.  On our front door is a sign I purchased last year:  This House Believes.  Little did I know how important that message would be for us this year.

To listent to the full text of today’s reflection from Prepare Your Heart for a Great Christmas, scroll down the left side of the page for a green box with today’s podcast.  You can also find past podcasts by clicking on “posts” in the green box. 

Amy Grant loves Christmas.  She’s recorded three holiday CD’s in her career and this year has released a new collection, compiling four new tracks and her favorite songs from her previous CD’s. 

Many artists who achieve her stature as a grammy-winning and multi-platinum selling performer are obliged to add their takes to the traditional favorites to the holiday music lexicon.  Often while listening to Christmas music on the radio, I wonder if the singer really has a heart for the material.  It’s clear Amy does.

What sets Amy apart is that she really means it when she invites us to have a merry little Christmas.  Whether joyful or solemn, Amy’s beautiful pop voice strikes the right tone.  Her heart is in all these songs.  Clearly, her faith and family traditions hold profound meaning for her this time of year.  When we join her in the music, we’re uplifted with the spirit of the season as well.

The new tracks on her current Christmas CD continue her heartfelt holiday spirit.  Of the four contributions, my favorite is I Need a Silent Night.  It gives voice to the unspoken wish of all frazzled moms this time of year:

I need a silent night, a Holy night to hear an angel voice

Through the chaos and the noise I need a midnight clear

A little peace right here to end this crazy day with a silent night

The song features Amy’s daughter Corrina reading the Luke account of the birth of Jesus.  Her sweet voice harkens to the angel Amy wants to hear during her silent night.  Like Linus in A Charlie Brown Christmas, she reminds us of the reason for the season. Perhaps Corrina also reminds us to be attentive to all the angels in our lives, and not get so caught up in the bustle that we brush past them and miss tender moments. 

Amy’s other new tracks include her covers of Jingle Bells, the arrangement made famous by Barbra Streisand, and Count Your Blessings, a tender song from the classic movie White Christmas.  Amy and husband Vince Gill composed Baby, It’s Christmas, a soft jazz, slightly sexy ode to the one you’ve been meeting under the mistletoe. 

Our family has grown up with Amy through her Christmas recordings, and the new collection spans the decades from Tennessee Christmas to Breath of Heaven and A Christmas to Remember.  With her new collection, Amy invites us celebrate the season with her, right where we are.  She’s real, she’s hopeful; her heart is in all her work.  We know Christmas has arrived when Amy’s voice fills our home.

Today I am grateful for The Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s Messiah and for the Parkway North High School Combined Choirs and Orchestra who performed it last evening.  It was gorgeous and thrilling!  It is their tradition that the director, Brian Reeves, invites the audience to participate. 

As this is Abby’s freshman year, this was a surprise invitation.  Steve jumped up to participate, and with a bit of prompting I followed suit.  Soon, there were 3 of my four family members–Abby in the soprano section, Steve in tenor and I in alto–lifting our hearts to our omnipotent God.  Steve and I used to sing in our parish choir, and last participated in the Chorus when Abby was just a baby. 

Praise God for this unexpected Christmas Moment!  With all we have going on in our lives, I needed the reminder that “The Lord God, omnipotent, reigneth.”  God is in charge.  And, the soaring music did indeed lift my heart and officially ensconce me in the “Christmas Spirit.”  Hallelujah!