Favorite Things?

I was asked today, on two separate occasions, what my favorite holiday is and what my favorite Christmas hymn or poem is. Since I am looking forward these days to November and all the fun it holds for our family (three birthdays and Thanksgiving!), I thought I'd share my answers here. Not that you care much, but.... At any rate, this blog post is helping me procrastinate. Of course, you'd never do that, either.

Favorite holiday: it's a toss-up. Around this time of year, I say Thanksgiving. Around Easter, I say Resurrection Sunday. I love them both, but Resurrection Sunday probably would win in a dead heat, since I gave my heart to my Savior on that day. Besides, Lucy was born around then, too.

Incidentally, I also like to celebrate Purim, the Jewish festival remembering the book of Esther.

No, I'm not Jewish. At least, I wasn't born that way.

Favorite Christmas hymn? Hands down, it's Good Christian Men, Rejoice. That's good stuff.

Finally, my favorite Christmas poem follows below. Now the Holy Days may commence! (Feel free to share your faves, too, in the comments.)

Let the Stable Still Astonish.

by Leslie Leyland Fields

Let the stable still astonish.

Straw–dirt floor, dull eyes,
Dusty flanks of donkeys, oxen;
Crumbling, crooked walls;
No bed to carry that pain,
And then, the child,
Rag-wrapped, laid to cry
In a trough.

Who would have chosen this?

Who would have said: “Yes,
Let the God of all the heavens and earth
Be born here, in this place?
Who but the same God
Who stands in the darker, fouler rooms
Of our hearts

And says, “Yes,

Let the God of Heaven and Earth

Be born here –

In this place.