A confession - I look forward to each Christmas season for the gifts that I get, but not the pretty wrapped ones on Christmas morning like when I was a child. Time spent with family, good food, vacation days, good food - these are all things I look forward to, and as much as I love and treasure those things, they are not the gifts I most anticipate.
I love hearing Christmas music everywhere - Christ-centered Christmas music. I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas is OK, but it doesn't hold a candle to the traditional carols and some of the more recent Christian Christmas standards. Besides, 5 winters of snow shoveling in Cleveland, OH, kind of tarnishes the White Christmas image for me.
My most favorite Christmas song has to be Move Me Closer (A Shepherd's Hymn) recorded in 1987 by Evie. It tells the story of a mantle-manger-set shepherd asking to be moved closer to the Child. It wraps the spirit of Christmas up for me.
Each Christmas for several years now, as I'm driving down the road and listening to the radio, there it is! Move Me Closer begins to play. Sometimes I just turn the radio on and the song begins to play as if it was just waiting for me to get in and start the car. Usually, I'll only hear it once each season. What a precious gift!
The album Move Me Closer is on has long been out of print and has become a collector's item - with a collector's item price. I once bid on a copy on eBay but dropped out after the price went above $50. Just today, I finally purchased a used copy of the CD. I have a habit of copying my favorite songs onto a few CDs so I don't have to carry a CD library in my car, but I don't think I'm going to do that with this song.
Even though I will have the CD and could play the song any time I want, I want to continue to anticipate and be surprised anew each Christmas season as God gives the gift of this special song and its message to me.
Move me closer to the Child ...
(part 2 is here)
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