Merry Christmas!

Dec 23

We’re almost to Christmas! People celebrate the holiday in many different ways, both in the U.S. and around the world. At its core, the holiday is about the birth of the ethnically Jewish, Messiah King, Jesus. His is a story of a miraculous birth and the beginning of great hope of heaven with God, through God’s promises in His Son for all who believe His story and receive Jesus as their own Savior and King. The way Christmas has been celebrated has taken many forms since the first nativity. Today Christmas traditions vary considerably around the world. Some people still celebrate the holiday in ways that center traditional Christian beliefs about Christmas, while others focus less on those aspects of the season, but participate in gift giving and philanthropy, or take a different focus with popular characters like Santa or Elf on the Shelf. One of my family’s traditions has been to visit the Franklin Park Conservatory here in Columbus, Ohio in December and enjoy the holiday displays there.

If you celebrate Christmas, one thing is probably certain about your traditions – you most likely listen and sing along to some favorite Christmas music!

For families, this is a great time of year to spend some extra time together creating memories around the songs, scents, tastes, and fun activities of the season. Why not include both music and time reading together in your Christmas celebration this season?

I checked out our local library system (Columbus Metropolitan Library) for children’s books that had a Christmas theme and especially text that was focused on the lyrics to a Christmas song or otherwise musical sound. I found several books that I liked. Music literacy happens when it is included in many different ways in the course of normal life. If you’ve got a library card and would like to share some Christmas songs that you know with your child, reading these books is an easy way to bring a little bit more music into your life. Read the books, talk about the pictures, sing and listen to the songs. You can extend the musical education value by talking about what is different in each artist’s rendition of a song when you listen to more than one version, and discuss how that version makes you feel about the song, which can help children learn to think about what makes music sound the way it does.

The list of books that I found in the library starts with non-religious books and then moves into some books that are focused on more traditional Christian Christmas carols.

1) Jingle Bells by Susan Jeffers.

Many of my piano students this year are beginners, and Jingle Bells is one of the easiest songs for them to access, even if they have only had a few lessons! I had this book on the piano as we worked on the song, and many of my elementary school aged students picked it up on their own and flipped through it. They clearly enjoyed the familiar words of the song, which serve as the text of the book, as well as the illlustrations (which I believe are ink and watercolor). The artwork draws you into a world that is both realistic and hints at magic and wonder. The back of the book has a list of animals that children can try to find throughout the book.

2) Deck the Hall: A Traditional Carol illustrated by Sylvia Long

The lyrics of this well-known song are the text of this book. It is illustrated with paintings of a bunny family enjoying Christmas and winter traditions together.

3) Frosty the Snowman by Jack Rollins and Steve Nelson.

This book has the words to the song and the animated characters from the Warner Brothers classic.

4) Silent Night by Lara Hawthorne

The lyrics of the carol ‘Silent Night’ serve as the text for the book. I’ve seen the illustrations described as ‘folkart style.’ I love that the skintones in this book are varied, as that reflects the diversity of people who celebrate the birth of Christ, as well as honors the culture that Jesus was born a part of. The book includes a page that tells the history of the writing of this well-known Christmas hymn.

5) Joy to the World! Christmas Around the Globe by Kate DePalma and Sophie Fatus

This book is definitely unique and honors the diversity of those who celebrate Christmas around the world. Thirteen total countries are included with rich and detailed colorful illustrations in mixed media such as acrylics, pencils, collage and digital. This book would be a great way to spark conversations about and interest in other cultures with your child. The countries include Colombia, India, Philippines, Canada, Mexico, Egypt, Ethiopia, Australia, Italy, Serbia, Argentina, Iceland and Lebanon and there are informational pages at the end of the book with more facts about how each nation celebrates Christmas.

6) Song of the Stars: A Christmas Story by Sally Lloyd-Jones. Paintings by Alison Jay.

This book does not use the lyrics of a Christmas song for the text and it takes a slightly wider and imaginative approach to the story of the wonder of the nativity. Various nature scenes are depicted with animals, all of whom are anticipating with excitement and wonder God’s gift of His Son. In addition to the traditional shepherds and angels giving praise and worship to the newborn baby, all of creation is seen to participate with wonder and awe. This book is sure to draw your child into the wonder of the nativity as a story that has special significance to all of God’s creation.

7) Away in a Manger by Thomas Kinkade

I loved Thomas Kinkade paintings as a child, which is probably when they were at the height of their popularity. While they present a bit of a utopian- type world, I also think they remind us of a world beyond this one where all is touched by wonder and light. The text is the words of the Christmas carol, which I like. For me, the one downside of this book is a lack of diversity in skintone. That wouldn’t cause me to avoid it, but I would want it to be mixed in with other books that are more accurate in their depiction of the ethnicity of Jesus.

8) And one final non-musical book!

I had checked this out with the rest of the stack, and it turns out that it does not use the lyrics of a song or have a directly musical bent. However, I just really liked it and felt that it was unique among Christmas books for children, so I’m sharing it here. ‘Nativity’ is by Cynthia Rylant. The simple illustrations done in acrylic paints feel truly unique and capture some of the scale of the event of the nativity, in terms of God’s greatness (which comes across in the vast open spaces in the paintings) meeting man and womankind in our smallness through the birth of Christ (the much smaller scale of the human figures in the vast landscapes). Unique in this book is that the text doesn’t remain with Jesus the baby, but shifts to when he became a man and began to teach others. At that point, the text becomes the words of the Sermon on the Mount from the Bible and ends with the profoundly glorious promise of Christmas …”for they shall see God.”

“Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are the pure in heart…for they shall see God.”

If you celebrate Christmas, one thing is probably certain about your traditions – you most likely listen and sing along to some favorite Christmas music!

I checked out our local library system (Columbus Metropolitan Library) for children’s books that had a Christmas theme and text that was focused on the lyrics to a Christmas song or otherwise musical sound. I found several books that I liked. Music literacy happens when it is included in many different ways in the course of normal life. If you’ve got a library card and would like to share some Christmas songs that you know with your child, reading these books is an easy way to bring a little bit more music into your life. Read the books, talk about the pictures, sing and listen to the songs. You can extend the musical education value of this by talking about what is different in each artist’s rendition of the song and how that version makes you feel about the song.

Merry Christmas! I hope you have a blessed holiday.

Much love friends!