Mike Huckabee’s ‘A Simple Christmas’ is Simply Special & Worth Buying

Throughout much of 2009, I've had the opportunity to hear the Huckabee reports as they've played on the local talk radio station, WBAP, here in Dallas.  Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who ran for president last go-around, has authored "A Simple Christmas," a 205-page book containing 12 special Christmas stories about his life and each of them are worth the read. 

The book is available in print from The Penguin Group and in many forms.  You can get it in print, get it in eReader on Barnes and Noble, Kindle, and then download the audio off of iTunes and listen to Huckabee read it, which in and of itself, adds a dimension one isn't normally accustomed to with a book. 51yM-zeFJIL._SL500_AA240_

I enjoyed this book from Page 1 of the Preface where Huckabee points out the humble beginnings of Christ's birth–basically in a barnyard, and the fact that the manager, was "An animal's food dish." 

Writes Huckabee: "The 'manger' was nowhere near as romantic as it sounds. It was simply a rough wood water or feed trough for the animals. Not long before the son of God was placed in it, livestock had eaten grain out of it. God spent His first few moments as a human in a food dish."  If that doesn't bring it home, then there's one more point he makes.

The whole bit about Silent Night, has to have been a farce.  We're talking about a teen mother here, having her baby in a barn, with no doctor, hot water and the cliche-ish plenty of towels.  No epidurals, sterile beds, and the question would have been who would have been louder?  Mary having the baby or Jesus coming into this world?

But this book takes its readers on a journey of the challenges/opportunities that sometimes present themselves in our lives, and this Christian man's approach to dealing with them in a simple way in faith and reverence to God. 

I felt a few times he walked right of the edge of the book feeling a little too political, but at it's heart, it's a pure book to help give a reader insight on what Christmas ought to be–less stress, and more about how you've been blessed.

I'll read this book each year and play it on iTunes at various times as I endure the challenges of the future and use it to refocus my attentions back on the importance of my faith, the message that our Lord God in human form began his life on earth as a baby born in the simplest of fashion and with the knowledge that no matter how feel it feels God has wandered from me, most likely it's me who has wandered from him.

I encourage you to pick this book up this holiday season. Huckabee is on a nationwide book tour and was here in Dallas Friday night, though I couldn't head over there to see him because I was out in front being the neighborhood's Santa.  But it'd be worth your time to go see him if you can and thank him for letting God use him to tell such a powerful story, a simple story, about what it's like to have A Simple Christmas.

Are you who you want to be?

I just played Percy Faith's I'll be home for Christmas for the first time this season.  1085261

Well, almost season!

It took me back to a Christmas season back in 1983 when my mom's parents had come South from Indiana for a visit and I was taking piano lessons.  There were parts of I'll be home that I really knew well.  And then there were parts I was struggling with.  

Grandpa apparently had been napping while I was playing or rather, trying to.  I remember him now telling me what I just said, "You can tell the parts you know really well."  What that has to do with anything right now, I don't know, but maybe it is relevant.  If you think about it, we often do make it clear what we do really well and what we enjoy doing, and then those parts of life we're not so good at or don't know so well, well, it shows.  

Over the past few months I've been on a mission to find the true me and decide what it is I want to be now that I've grown up.  I've spent hours contemplating the subject and deciding what it is I do and do not like about this life and figuring out what about it I have the opportunity to change.  And I have the chance to do things that I really know about.  And to focus on doing them well.  Being the best. 

Grandma always used to tell me that I should be a writer; that I should write about things I know best, like in that book, "I remember momma."  I've never read the book/seen the paly but the point was stick to the things you know about. I-remember-mama-1948_poster

So in the turmoil of what forever will be remembered as 2009, where I've been dealt a series of lemons and injustices, it's time to make some lemonade.  

Here's an exercise to consider.  Get a couple pieces of notebook paper.  Sit down in a quiet room and think.  Ask yourself these five questions and see what you come up with.

1)  What are my standards in life?  Define them.

2)  What is my focus in life?  Define it.

3)  What am I afraid to become? 

4)  What do I want to change the most in my life? 

5) If I became something else, what would it be? 

A final exercise is to take another sheet of paper and write down every role you play in your life.  When I did this, I filled the page with the likes of writer, father, step-father, husband, Mac, servant of God, iconoclast, early adopter, and the list goes on and on. I then went back and decided which roles I used to play and which ones I only play now.  I then divided the list up into what I'm not doing any more and should be doing more of.  

Not all of these questions I came up with on my own, but a good many of them I came up with as variations to other questions posed by others. They're good questions we all should take the time to ask ourselves every once and again, just to take stock.   

Ready for Christmas 2009: Excitement about Santa’s Sleigh

Ready for Christmas: See Santa’s Sleigh and workshop beginning Nov. 27, 2009. 

Are you ready for Christmas?

Oh my gosh, we’ve gone overboard this year in our Christmas decorating.

Without reservation, I assure you we are the only house in miles that has its own, classic-looking Santa’s Sleigh.

We’re getting closer to being ready for the Nov. 27 arrival of Santa Claus at our house in Balch Springs, TX.

This weekend, Ashleigh, 5, helped me with retouches on the Santa’s Sleigh we built in late 2008.

Our Elves are busy, busy, busy getting ready for Christmas 2009!

We have much work to do to be ready for the 27th!

It’s a busy time at our house.

This keeps things fun and the excitement building.

This past weekend I put up a canopy of lights over our swimming pool and added other festive decorations in the backyard.

Check out EA SPORTS Active for the Wii.

This week we’re also starting a new workout program with EA SPORTS Active using “More Workouts,” their new product that goes on sale tomorrow, Nov. 17. EASACTMWwiiBoxPFTfront

The Balch Springs Santa Cop program is ready for Christmas!

Don’t forget our big priority for Christmas 2009–supporting the Balch Springs Police Department’s 23rd annual Santa Cop program.
We encourage those who come to see Santa also to bring an unwrapped toy, gift certificate, etc. we will present to the police department.
They will provide Balch Springs children whose parents cannot afford Christmas presents for their children this year.
This helped about 150 area families last year.
We’re hoping to assist even more in 2009.

Stop back soon as we continue to get ready for Christmas 2009.

There will be a new video by week’s end of the Sleigh and the beginning decorations of Santa’s Workshop and landing pad in our front yard.

You can learn more about my Santa Sleigh and Santa Workshop build from:

 

“We don’t realize that God is all we need until God is all we’ve got”

I just saw this post on Twitter.  It's been retweeted several times already this morning, but this could not be more true.  "We don't realize that God is all we need until God is all we've got."  I couldn't tell who it was attributed to, but it says it all.

And I would guess that some of us soon forget this once other things start returning to our daily lives. 

There have been times in 2009 when I thought that I didn't even have God.  It's been a horrific year for our family; the depths of which we shall not soon recover.  Clearly, we'll never be who we were at the beginning of the year.  So many things have affected us. 

Satan has been attacking us and I've said in this space, and my soon-to-be retired blog over on www.DadsCenter.org, that at times I felt like a modern-day Job

Please keep praying for our family.  The forces of evil have struck us with some considerable blows this year, but with God in our lives, we shall prevail.  Thank you, God.  With you, we don't need anything else.