Golden songs and promises

Amid the busyness of the holidays, three books offer families ways to savor the real meaning of the season.

In Sing in Exultation! (10Publishing, 112 pp.), Jonathan Landry Cruse ponders the rich meaning found in the verses of various Christmas carols and uses them as a springboard for reflecting on the Christmas season. So often, Cruse notes in his introduction, people don’t pay close attention to the words they sing and as a result do not understand the meaning and significance of treasured holiday hymns. This is problematic, he writes, because “words that are sung with no understanding, even if sung in God’s direction, fall flat before the Lord.”

Cruse begins and ends his devotional with Isaac Watts’ “Joy to the World,” which echoes the first prediction of Christ’s advent as well as the hope of Christ’s second advent. In between, he selects hymns that display the arc of the Christmas story and echo Scripture. Cruse also notes that the “best Christian hymns will teach you good theology.” He points to the lesser-known second verse of “O Come, All Ye Faithful,” showing that when we sing “God of God, Light of Light … Very God, begotten not created,” we are quoting from the Nicene Creed. For families with children of various ages, each daily reading is brief enough to accommodate shorter attention spans and includes a Scripture reading for further reflection.

Marty Machowski’s Promises Made Promises Kept (New Growth Press, 64 pp.) is a family devotional designed to begin a week before Christmas with the Promises Made side of the book. This half of the book focuses on the promises that God made about the future birth of Christ and shows how the Old Testament narrative foreshadowed the Savior. The first few days’ readings move quickly through the promises God gave to Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David, while days 5 through 7 focus on the promises revealed through the major and minor prophets.

After Christmas, families can flip the book over to Promises Kept and read through seven more devotionals that highlight how God’s promises are all fulfilled in Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. Machowski wrote the book with grade-school children in mind, but parents will find that it offers a solid foundation upon which to tailor age-­appropriate discussions about the importance of both the Old and New Testaments in the Christmas story and how God’s followers are still awaiting the fulfillment of the last promise: Jesus’ second advent.

Lanier Ivester writes in Glad & Golden Hours (Rabbit Room Press, 424 pp.) that Christmas should be more than a holiday: It should be a resting place. This concept can seem foreign amid a season fraught with busyness, she notes, but while all the preparations have their place, “ritual and tradition are always the servants of relationship, with God and with other people.” Ivester calls her book a Christmas companion, and it functions as both reflective memoir and hospitality guide while advocating for traditions and celebrations that infuse the season with beauty.

Interspersed among the narrative chapters that wrestle with the sorrows and joys of life are entertaining tips, crafting tutorials, and recipes (festive libations included), ranging from the simple to the elaborate. Ivester recommends in the opening pages that readers pick and choose what they want to incorporate into their family rhythms, thereby freeing themselves from the trap of another to-do list. The volume’s length and scope may prove daunting to some, but women from all seasons of life can glean encouragement as Ivester mentors them through the four weeks of Advent and then Christmastide. She concludes by making the case for why it matters to pour beauty and presence into this sacred season: “To spread a lovely meal, to beautify our rooms with seasonal sparkle, to light candles against a deepening darkness—all are ways of saying to God, ‘Thy kingdom come,’ and to the world, ‘Behold your King!’”