John Denver sings "Silent Night, Holy Night"

"December Twenty-fourth" by Eleanor Slater : Christ in Poetry

DECEMBER TWENTY-FOURTH
by Eleanor Slater

Tomorrow you are born again
   Who died so many times.
Do you like the candle-light,
   Do you like the chimes?

Do you stop to wonder
   Why men never see
How very closely Bethlehem
   Approaches Calvary?


Source: Christ in Poetry (1952), an anthology compiled and edited by Thomas Curtis Clark and Hazel Davis Clark

"The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost - Audio Poem of the Day

Listen to a recording of a man reading this poem by Robert Frost, a poem that is good for children: The Road Not Taken - Poem of the Day

Robert Frost (1874-1963)

American poet

The Canadian Tenors sing "Huron Carol"

The Wondrous Gift

How silently, how silently,

The wondrous gift is given!

So God imparts to human hearts

The blessings of his heaven.

No ear may hear his coming,

But in this world of sin,

Where meek souls will receive him, still

The dear Christ enters in.

     PHILLIPS BROOKS

     From the hymn "O Little Town of Bethlehem" (ca. 1868)

     This is Christmas: not the tinsel, not the giving and receiving, not even the carols, but the humble heart that receives anew the wondrous gift, the Christ.

     FRANK McKIBBEN

     Quoted in An American Christmas 

     (Ideals Publications Incorporated, 1996)

About A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

     "Marley was dead: to begin with." So begins Charles Dickens's Christmas story A Christmas Carol. On this day in 1843, according to the Associated Press, "A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens, was first published in England." To read more about that classic Christmas story, click here.

A Christmas Carol

by Charles Dickens

First edition cover (1843)