During the holidays, so many of us can suffer for all kinds of reasons. The magnitude of our weary world weighs on our hearts and minds. We wrestle with chronic pain, broken relationships, shattered dreams, fragile faith, and unexpected losses. Our grief and sorrow feel particularly acute when compared to the festivity and joy everyone else seems to be feeling. More and more churches are acknowledging this fact with "Blue Christmas" services (also called “Longest Night” services) and offering resources to give particular support and comfort to those struggling during the “most wonderful time of the year.” Kathy Escobar has been leading Blue Christmas experiences at her church for nearly a decade and just experienced her bluest season of all following the sudden death of her son. In A Weary World, Escobar provides twenty-eight daily reflections paired with prayers and practices to honor our struggles during the holidays. Weekly resources make this Advent devotional suitable for group study as well.

Christmas at the White House beautifully documents the lavish public and private Christmas decorations, celebrations, themes, and traditions spanning half of a century inside the world's most famous address: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. With a foreword written by former First Lady Laura Bush, this singular book has earned the devotion of six of the most recent United States First Ladies, all of whom penned introductions to their sections. In the book, you can read what Betty Ford, Rosalynn Carter, Nancy Reagan, Barbara Bush, Hillary Clinton, and Laura Bush have to say about how they celebrated Christmas inside America's most special home. Illustrated with more than five hundred exquisite photographs, most of which have never been viewed by the public before, the 408-page book is the first documented and published history of fifty years and nine different administrations beginning in the early 1960s with First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, who initiated formal Christmas themes at the White House.

"Howard Thurman writes, "There must always be remaining in every one's life some place for the singing of angels..." In the meditations found in The Mood of Christmas, angels sing all year along. At the time of his death in 1981, Howard Thurman was Dean Emeritus of Marsh Chapel, Boston University, and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust in San Francisco. He also served as Dean of Rankin Chapel and Professor of Theology at Howard University in Washington, D.C., and Director of Religious Life at Morehouse College, Atlanta. Founder of the Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples in San Francisco, the first interracial, interdenominational church in the United States, he was spiritual mentor to Martin Luther King, Jr., and the author of more than twenty books which still speak to our condition today"--page 4 of cover.

The holidays are filled with joyful noise. But Christmas is sometimes wrapped in quiet: “Searching for presents quiet,” “Getting caught quiet,” and “Hoping for a snow day quiet.” Irresistibly cute, soft colored pencil illustrations of bunnies, bears, and more paint a magical holiday picture indeed.

A reminiscence of a Christmas shared by a seven-year-old boy and a sixtyish childlike woman, with enormous love and friendship between them.

Best-selling author R. Scott Hurd serves up a hearty spiritual feast of inspiring anecdotes, amusing reflections, and helpful advice. As someone who has personally struggled with his faith, Father Hurd knows all too well the questions and doubts that can emerge within a faith commitment. Combining his pastoral ministry experiences with his conversational writing style and humorous nature, he reassures, inspires, encourages, and challenges readers to take practical steps to reawaken their faith.

Wilma decides to plant Christmas trees with the help of her young neighbor, Parker.

Celebrate Christmas with reflections and prayers for each day of Advent. This effective antidote to the commercialism of the festive season can be used for individual meditation or group worship.

This wonderfully charming memoir, written when the author was 93, vibrantly brings to life an all-but-forgotten time and place. It is a moving tale of working-class life, and of the boundaries that can be overcome by love. “There are places that I have never forgotten. A little cobbled street in a smoky mill town in the North of England has haunted me for the greater part of my life. It was inevitable that I should write about it and the people who lived on both sides of its ‘Invisible Wall.’ ” The narrow street where Harry Bernstein grew up, in a small English mill town, was seemingly unremarkable. It was identical to countless other streets in countless other working-class neighborhoods of the early 1900s, except for the “invisible wall” that ran down its center, dividing Jewish families on one side from Christian families on the other. Only a few feet of cobblestones separated Jews from Gentiles, but socially, it they were miles apart. On the eve of World War I, Harry’s family struggles to make ends meet. His father earns little money at the Jewish tailoring shop and brings home even less, preferring to spend his wages drinking and gambling. Harry’s mother, devoted to her children and fiercely resilient, survives on her dreams: new shoes that might secure Harry’s admission to a fancy school; that her daughter might marry the local rabbi; that the entire family might one day be whisked off to the paradise of America. Then Harry’s older sister, Lily, does the unthinkable: She falls in love with Arthur, a Christian boy from across the street. When Harry unwittingly discovers their secret affair, he must choose between the morals he’s been taught all his life, his loyalty to his selfless mother, and what he knows to be true in his own heart.

In 11 Days In December, master historian and biographer Stanley Weintraub tells the remarkable story of the Battle of the Bulge as it has never been told before, from frozen foxholes to barn shelters to boxcars packed with wretched prisoners of war. In late December 1944, as the Battle of the Bulge neared its climax, a German loudspeaker challenge was blared across GI lines in the Ardennes: "How would you like to die for Christmas?" In the inhospitable forest straddling Belgium, France, and Luxembourg, only the dense, snow-laden evergreens recalled the season. Most troops hardly knew the calendar day they were trying to live through, or that it was Hitler's last, desperate effort to alter the war's outcome. Yet the final Christmas season of World War II matched desperation with inspiration. When he was offered an ultimatum to surrender the besieged Belgian town of Bastogne, Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe defied the Germans with the memorable one-word response, "Nuts!" And as General Patton prayed for clear skies to allow vital airborne reinforcements to reach his trapped men, he stood in a medieval chapel in Luxembourg and spoke to God as if to a commanding general: "Sir, whose side are you on?" His prayer was answered. The skies cleared, the tide of battle turned, and Allied victory in World War II was assured. Christmas 1944 proved to be one of the most fateful days in world history. Many men did extraordinary things, and extraordinary things happened to ordinary men. "A clear cold Christmas," Patton told his diary, "lovely weather for killing Germans, which seems a bit queer, seeing whose birthday it is." Peace on earth and good will toward men would have to wait. 11 Days in December is unforgettable.