To Kick off the Christmas Season...

It’s official folks! We have entered into my favorite time of the year. Christmas. I look forward to December from the moment we flip over into the new year all the way until the day after Thanksgiving (which is when I am able to convince hubby to finally pull out the Christmas decorations). I am one of those weird people that would let my house look like Christmas all year long if my husband didn’t threaten to chuck all of the decorations. Hehehe…

My favorite part, though, is definitely the aspect that has diminished over the years. I love celebrating the birth of our Lord, Jesus Christ. That’s the whole reason for the holiday, right? My girls are getting old enough to start understanding what Christmas is all about, and I so look forward to imparting this bit of good news to them.

Know what else? I love Christmas music.

Yep, that’s right. I would also listen to Christmas music all year long if…well, you know. My favorite Christmas song is “Mary, Did You Know?”

As parents, from the time we know we are expecting, we dream of what our children will be when they grow up. We have lofty aspirations for them and try our best to equip them to be the best person that they can be. I’m sure Mary and Joseph were no different.

In the first chapter of the Gospel of Luke, an angel comes to Mary and relates to her God’s will for her. “But the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end."

Now, talk about some lofty aspirations. I wonder how hard it would be to grasp that kind of news. Never mind the part about being a virgin and giving birth, but to know that your son is meant to be THE king in the house of Jacob, or as the angel says in his next line, the Son of God.

When Mary gave birth in a stable and laid her son in a manger, how hard was it to comprehend how this lowly birth would rise to the right hand of God? How would we even know how to train our child for something like that?

One other thing that I love about the song, “Mary, Did You Know?” is that it does a wonderful job of displaying both the deity and the humanity in Jesus. I can’t listen to that song without tearing up each time. Just imagining myself in Mary’s place is enough to humble me.

I have been blessed beyond belief with two daughters and a son. Of course, I dream of what my children will be when they grow up. My biggest hope is that they will be compassionate, God-fearing people who aren’t afraid to make a difference.

Stories through Music

Sometimes, because I am such a huge dork, I ravage YouTube and play a bunch of sappy songs just to make myself cry. Do you ever do that? Of course you do. I mean, you may not purposely search out songs to make you cry, but when you’re in a certain mood, you seek out things to improve upon that mood. In our day and age, we often turn to music. And why is that?

Last night was one of those nights. I just needed a good cry. No particular reason (well, I guess you could probably blame pregnancy hormones if you wanted to). I found just about every song I knew would make me cry. Songs like Skin and What Hurts the Most by Rascal Flats, I Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing by Aerosmith, Letters from War by Mark Schultz, even the song we played at our wedding, I Will Be Here by Stephen Curtis Chapman. I could name several more, but you can tell what a sap I am from that small sampling.

It occurred to me as I went to bed, later than usual thanks to all that music, that I really admire song writers. Novelists have it easy.

A songwriter has less than five minutes to tell a story or evoke an emotion. They have only so many words to get that across, and often those words are repeated throughout the song. We complain about condensing our story down to a couple of pages for a synopsis, but their lyrics often don’t even take up a page. We moan and complain about having to expand on setting, characters, plot lines, songwriters rely on structure of music to help portray the meaning or emotion behind a story being told in less time than it takes to zap a Hot Pocket in the microwave.

This got me thinking about the type of music and the artists that I listen to when I’m in certain moods. For instance, when I need to clean the house, I often pop in a Shania Twain CD. Why? Because I know all the words and can dance around the house, which makes cleaning so much more fun. I also know that just about anything by Rascal Flats or Mark Schultz will make me cry. If I’m in the car, a good 80’s rock CD or Christian worship CD will have me singing at the top of my lungs (with the windows down if it’s not allergy season).

These artists, and the songwriters behind their music, keep me coming back again and again. I relate to their stories. I submit to their emotions. I am revived or renewed or encouraged. And isn’t that what we want readers to feel when they read our novels? Don’t we want to evoke emotion and tell compelling stories that they relate to so they come back again and again? I think we could take a lesson from songwriters, indeed.