Start a new family Christmas tradition this year: read aloud the children’s book The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson. Read at a pace of one chapter per evening for a week.  The story is funny and insightful and moving, especially for families with children or teens. Here’s a brief excerpt from the end:

“And this was the funny thing about it all. For years, I’d thought about the wonder of Christmas, and the mystery of Jesus’ birth, and never really understood it. But now, because of the Herdmans, it didn’t seem so mysterious after all.

“When Imogene had asked me what the pageant was about, I told her it was about Jesus, but that was just part of it. It was about a new baby, and his mother and father who were in a lot of trouble– no money, no place to go, no doctor, nobody they knew….

“But Imogene, I guess, didn’t see it that way. Christmas just came over her all at once, like a case of chills and fever. And so she was crying, and walking into the furniture.”