Some of our favorite Christmas books

Someone was asking me what books that we liked to read during the lead up time to Christmas Day. Rather than try to put them up on a Facebook post, I thought I would list them here since we have so many in our personal library -- let alone the ones we get from the library!

So, here goes:

Favorite books from our personal library:

The First Christmas retold by Lynne Bradbury

A Pussycat's Christmas by Margaret Wise Brown

Corduroy's Christmas by B.G. Hennessey (this is a Lift-the-Flap book)

The First Christmas retold by Laura Ring (An ABC Book)

Tosca's Christmas - story by Matthew Sturgis, pictures by Anne Mortimer

The Donkey's Christmas Song by Nancy Tafuri

I Spy Christmas by Jean Marzollo and photos by Walter Wick

The Night before Christmas or a Visit of St. Nicholas

One Wintry Night by Ruth Bell Graham (I LOVE this story!!)

Bear Stays Up for Christmas by Karma Wilson

Harold at the North Pole by Crockett Johnson

Merry Christmas, Amelia Bedelia by Peggy Parish

I Want a Dog for Christmas, CHarlie Brown! by CHarles M. Schulz

A Charlie Brown Christmas by Charles M. Schulz

The Christmas Story by Carol Heyer (I LOVE the illustrations for this one - they draw me in!!)

The Chiropractor Who Saved Christmas by Diane Miller (don't ask, lol!)

Child of the Promise by Stormie O'Martian (15 short chapter, illustrations are beautiful, could be used for part of Advent readings or simply spread out over the 2 weeks before Christmas

The Very First Christmas by Paul L. Maier (love the illustrations)

The Twelve Days of Christmas by Hilary Knight (Yes, the song...the pictures are terribly fun - watch out for those racoons!!)

The Animals' Christmas Eve by Gale Wiersum (Little Golden Book)

Tell Me About Christmas by Mar Alice Jones

Babushka by Dawn Casey

Honesty, White Lies, Acting a Lie, Being Honest with Yourself

Keep it honest, people. Those little white lies are still lies, but you painted them to look pretty (sort of like putting lipstick on a pig). Acting a lie IS still a lie as well.

What do I mean by acting a lie? Well, an short little story that was in my child's CLE reader years ago has stuck with me. The gist of it was that a farmer was packing up peaches in baskets at the family fruit stand and putting them for sale. He was an honest man and the fruits were the same all the way through. However, there was another fruit farmer that would put lovely, perfect peaches on top of the container, but bruised ones would be on the bottom - deceiving his customers into thinking they were getting all perfect ones until they got home and found out the truth. The 1st farmer explained to his son how this was "acting" a lie (instead of a verbal lie).

How may of us "act a lie"? How often? I suspect we all do it far more often than we think and without even realizing it. White lies? All.the.time. - many people think a white lie is okay since you are trying to not hurt someones feelings (let's be honest, you can be more creative and figure out something to say that isn't a lie....or suck it up, be brave, & gently tell the truth). But, we tell ourselves lies as well...and often, we tell them to ourselves often enough that we come to believe them, tell others the same lie and expect them to believe them, then get upset/angry when others are brave enough to correct us. Sometimes, those that have lied to themselves decide to turn it on others and instead of owning up to their lie and accepting the correction (I get it - it is hard to do!), they call the other persons character into question, accuse them of creating disharmony by not going along with the little white lie, and then, even worse, maligning that persons character by telling everyone who will listen just how awful and wrong that person is for not believing the lie, not going along with the lie, & (heaven forbid) telling them that what they were believing was a lie.

Think long and hard before you decide to disparage others over something that you know down deep is a lie....in fact, as a Christian, we should be VERY thoughtful about it and if we think that person who has told us we are wrong about something, we should do due diligence and search out the truth in fact and in our hearts (are we just mad because we were called on the carpet about it and did not like what we heard). Then, if you are still struggling, go to that person directly and try to understand what the problem is. There is a biblical model for conflict resolution. :) There is actually more there that goes with my thoughts on this one, but that leads to another ugly topic that none of us like to think we do (and without thinking as well).

Pray about it. Ask God to speak truth to you. Ask for clarification and understanding. You might be surprised what God has to say to you....you might not like it, but He won't deceive you. :)