I grew up listening to Christmas songs by Amy Grant and the Jackson 5. In junior high I became enamored with Mariah Carey's Christmas album. Then came the Christmas CD by Boyz II Men. That's right. I rocked that.
I also love getting to sing carols in church. Seriously, that moment in O Holy Night when everyone belts out "Faaaaall on your knees..." gets me every time.
These days I am almost always listening to either the Christmas station on Pandora or to my local Christian radio station, which plays all Christmas music starting the day after Thanksgiving. I listen to the station, WCIC, on the app TuneIn Radio on my phone, but they also have their own WCIC app available for iPhone or Android.
I get to hear a lot more Christmas classics on Pandora, but I love hearing the Christian songs on WCIC.
Now, I'll admit that I don't love every Christian artist's cover of classic Christmas songs. Nor do I enjoy every original Christmas song that pops up on WCIC. I won't name those songs here. :)
I have picked up a few favorites from Christian artists over the last few holiday seasons. I wanted to share them here in case you haven't heard them.
"Welcome To Our World" by Chris Rice:
"Baby Boy" by For King and Country:
"Feliz Navidad" by Unspoken (a new favorite this year):
And two of my very favorites...
"Peace on Earth" by Casting Crowns:
"Jesus, Savior" by Chris August (The verses of this song are oddly written. For example, they rhyme the word girl with the word carpenter. But I just love the chorus so much! "Our salvation has a name"...Amazing!):
So if you drive by me and see me singing and dancing in my car, you can bet that one of the above songs is most likely on my radio.
I hope you're getting in the Christmas spirit in your own way. The music does it for me. Believe it or not, some fellow holiday shoppers have added to my joy.
Yesterday I had to run into the grocery store for two items for our dinner. I was in a hurry, and all of the check-out lanes had lines. I took a breath and got in line behind a cute older woman. She glanced back and saw that I only had a couple of items, and she offered to let me go in front of her. I gratefully accepted her offer. After I moved up in front of her, there were two cute older men in front of me, and they were just finishing loading all of their many items onto the belt. They also offered to let me go in front of them. The worker hadn't started scanning their items, so I gratefully accepted their offer as well. I was done checking out in less than 60 seconds. I warmly thanked them all again, and the woman said, "Of course. It's Christmas time!"
Today Nora and I went out in the painful cold to head to Walmart for a few Christmas gifts. I got distracted looking at the holiday coffee cream flavors, and Nora and I ended up in a bit of a tickle fight right there in the dairy section. I was just so happy to be out Christmas shopping and spending time with my girl, and we had fun together. I became aware of a woman standing near us. I turned to her and said to let me know if I was in her way, and she said she just stopped to enjoy my daughter's giggles. We had a very pleasant exchange, and then we parted ways as she told us to have a very Merry Christmas.
It's been a crazy week. A heavy week. An emotional week. Who knows if I'll even have time to tell you about half of it. I'm so grateful to end this week on a high note, giggling with my daughter near the Walmart milks and exchanging pleasantries with strangers. And rocking out to my favorite festive tunes.
Jessica
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