a certain small shepherd.

What is one of the simple joys of Christmas that you like to savor to the fullest?

I have so many, but I especially love any chance to sing Christmas carols.

My musical selection today is especially for Mary Love and Mom because of our love of The Three Tenors.

A Certain Small Shepherd by Rebecca Caudill is one of my favorite Christmas books. If you haven’t read it, you should read the whole thing, but here is a summary. It tells the story of a little boy named Jamie who was born mute. When he was in the first grade, he was given the part of a shepherd in the Christmas play. He was so excited! His sister Saro made him a beautiful shepherd’s coat and his father found him a shepherd’s crook. But on Christmas Eve, it started snowing so hard that nobody could get to the church for the play. As the snow got worse, a man and a woman came through the storm and asked Jamie’s father for shelter in their stable.

Still Jamie stared into the fire. A strange feeling was growing inside him. This night was not like other nights, he knew. Something mysterious was going on. He felt afraid.

What was that he heard? The wind? Only the wind?

He lay down on his bed with his clothes on. He dropped off to sleep. A rattling at the door waked him.

He sat upright quickly. He looked around. His heart beat fast. But nothing in the room had changed. Everything was as it had been when he lay down – the fire was burning; two stockings, Saro’s and Honey’s, hung under the mantel; the clock was ticking solemnly.

He looked at Father’s bed. The sheets were just as Saro had turned them back.

There! There it was! He heard it again! It sounded like singing. “Glory to God! On earth peace!”

Jamie breathed hard. Had he heard that? Or had he only said it to himself?

The next morning, Jamie’s father takes Jamie, Saro, and Honey to the church, where the man and woman spent the night.

The woman smiled at them. “You came to see?” she asked, and lifted the cover.

Saro went first and peeped under the cover. Honey went next.

“You look too, Jamie,” said Saro.

For a second Jamie hesitated. He leaned forward and took one quick look. Then he turned, shot down the aisle and out of the church, slamming the door behind him….

To the house Jamie made his way…where he hurriedly pulled his shepherd’s robe over his coat. He snatched up his crook from the chimney corner.

With his hand on the doorknob, he glanced toward the fireplace. There, under the mantel, hung Saro’s and Honey’s stockings. And there, beside them, hung his stocking! Now who had hung it there? It had in it the same bulge his stocking had had every Christmas morning since he could remember – a bulge made by an orange.

Jamie ran to the fireplace and felt the toe of his stocking. Yes, there was the dime, just as on other Christmas mornings.

Hurriedly he emptied his stocking. With the orange and the dime in one hand and the crook in the other, he made his way toward the church….

Father opened the church door.

Without looking to the left or right, Jamie hurried up the aisle. Father and Saro followed him. Beside the pallet he dropped to his knees.

“Here’s a Christmas gift for the Child,” he said, clear and strong.

“Father!” gasped Saro. “Father, listen to Jamie!”

The woman turned back the covers from the baby’s face. Jamie gently laid the orange beside the baby’s tiny hand.

“And here’s a Christmas gift for the Mother,” Jamie said to the woman.

He put the dime in her hand.

Father, trembling with wonder and with joy, fell to his knees beside Jamie. Saro, too, knelt; and Honey, and the man.

“Surely,” the woman spoke softly, “the Lord lives this day.”

“Surely,” said Father, “the Lord does live this day, and all days. And he is loving and merciful and good.”

In the hush that followed, Christmas in all its joy and majesty came to Hurricane Gap. And it wasn’t so long ago at that.