Happy Friday!
I am happy to have a moment to breathe so I can actually participate in a First Line Friday - it's been a while. I am also excited because tomorrow is our last day before winter break and good Lord, do teachers love vacation time more than the students.
"Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year - at least according to Andy Williams's famous rendition of Edward Pola and George Wyle's Christmas song that can be heard in malls and on radio stations across America throughout the month of December."
(True, though I would argue it actually begins before Thanksgiving. Please, for the love of all that is holy, wait until the day after Thanksgiving to start with the Christmas music.)
I was first introduced to this author when I found his earlier book, The Final Days of Jesus, which takes readers through the Gospel in the final week of the human life of Jesus. I read it every year in the week leading up to Easter Sunday. I was doubly excited then to find this text, which chronicles the events surrounding the birth of Jesus and I highly recommend it.
Happy Reading!
Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Joyful Kwanzaa, and everything in between.
Sarah
Christmas is nice just because I can hear Sinatra and Dean Martin on more radio stations than NPR. :)
ReplyDeleteThis is true - I just wish it would start AFTER Thanksgiving!
DeleteMerry Christmas! I hope you enjoy your well-earned break.
ReplyDeleteOn my blog, I'm featuring the first line from a fun Christmas read called 'Tinsel in a Tangle' by Laurie Germaine, but here, I'm going to share the first line from another Christmas book I recently finished, this one by Chautona Havig, called 'Carol and the Belles':
"I'll never get off this plane."
Thank you Katie, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
DeleteMERRY CHRISTMAS!
ReplyDelete"Good morning, Kansas!" The radio scratched out static over deejay Kris Kristiansen's lilting baritone. - Silver Bells by Deborah Raney
Merry Christmas Caryl!
DeleteHappy Friday!
ReplyDeleteMy FLF comes from a book I’m reading now Secrets of the Tulip Sisters by Susan Mallery.
Kelly Murphy was willing to accept certain injustices in the world. That brownies had more calories than celery.
Happy Holidays!
Happy Holidays to you also Susan!
DeleteMerry Christmas!
ReplyDeleteNext up on my TBR...
The music seeped into her sould like fog over the Thames. (from A Song Unheard by Roseanna M. White)
Merry Christmas Suzie, and a Happy New Year!
DeleteMerry Christmas! I'm one of those who decorates for Christmas before Thanksgiving. For me Thanksgiving is part of the entire holiday season. I don't skip Thanksgiving just because my house is decorated for Christmas, but it sure does alleviate the stress and allows me to enjoy the season more. :) (To each his own, right?) The book I'm featuring on my blog today is A Match of Sorts by Lucette Nel. May your Christmas be wonderful!!
ReplyDeleteMerry Christmas Anneliese, and I hope you have a wonderful new year!
DeleteSounds like a fantastic book. I love reading histories based on Jesus and His life, etc. I will definitely check this out.
ReplyDeleteToday on my blog I am featuring Desert Duet by Debra Marvin. I'm just beginning chapter 3, so I will leave the first line from that chapter.
"The new gray fedora, with its crisp, black grosgrain band, would be a stylish, but dismal failure at preventing sunburn."
I'm really enjoying this story! Happy Friday. 😊
I really love it, definitely find it and The Final Days of Jesus also. I have found some great books about the time period also and I can let you know some of those titles too if you are interested! One great one is called The Foods and Feasts of Jesus, even comes with recipes. So cool.
DeleteMerry Christmas, Happy New Year!
Merry Christmas and Happy Friday, too! :-) Over on my blog, I'm featuring Monster by Frank Peretti, but over here, I'll share the first line of another on my TBR pile, The Cottage by Michael Phillips: "The letter two weeks before had been brief. Less than half a page. Yet in an instant it had turned her life upside down."
ReplyDeleteMerry Christmas Alicia, hope you have a great new year as well!
DeleteMerry Christmas and Happy New Year. I agree wait until after Thanksgiving.
ReplyDeleteHi Betty, thank you! I always feel like poor Thanksgiving gets so overlooked because Christmas starts as soon as Halloween ends. I hope you have a wonderful Christmas and happy New Year!
DeleteI was just thinking about you! So I'm so excited that you had a moment to join the FLF fun this week. :) Merry Christmas! Andy Williams...I actually saw him in concert once. It was so good--we took my grandmother for her birthday. :)
ReplyDeleteAw, thanks! I am so excited to be writing this on a Saturday and knowing that I do not have to go back to work for two weeks! I have missed out a lot in the last couple weeks so it is nice to be back. Merry Christmas and I hope you have a great New Year filled with lots of time for reading :)
DeleteWe don't celebrate Thanksgiving in New Zealand, so the Christmas music usually doesn't start until December. Not that I shop often enough to notice!
ReplyDeleteI'm sharing from All is Bright by Andrea Grigg over on my blog, a wonderful novella set in Australia ... which means a summer Christmas (FYI, that's normal for me. Not so normal for most of you, or for my Icelandic pastor and his family.)
I'm currently reading A Sweethaven Christmas by Courtney Walsh, an new favourite author. Here's the first line:
"Why is that woman staring over here?" Lila shifted in the tall-backed linen-covered chair and nodded towards a blonde woman at the bar.
I suspect this is going to be more than a Christmas story ...
Blessings as you celebrate the birth of our Saviour this week!
Thank you so much Iola, and I am glad to hear that the Christmas music starts at an appropriate time in New Zealand! Sounds like a good start to the story. merry Christmas and hope you have a wonderful New Year!
DeleteSounds like a perfect book to read just before and after Christmas Day!
ReplyDeleteIt really is, I recommend both books highly. The one regarding the last week of Christ's life is nicely broken up into day-by-day events once He and the disciples entered Jerusalem. This one i set up differently and looks at the story of His birth in each of the books of the Gospel and the various viewpoints. They're both great books, let me now what you think when you get a chance to read them. Merry Christmas!
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