“I love The First Christmas . What a charming way Stephen Mitchell has found to tell my favorite story of all, the Nativity, character by character (I love the donkey and the ox), with wise and thrilling interludes about God, reality, truth.” –Anne Lamott In The First Christmas , Stephen Mitchell brings the Nativity story to vivid life as never before. A narrative that is only sketched out in two Gospels becomes fully realized here with nuanced characters and a setting that reflects the culture of the time. Mitchell has suffused the birth of Jesus with a sense of beauty that will delight and astonish readers. In this version, we see the world through the eyes of a Whitmanesque ox and a visionary donkey, starry-eyed shepherds and Zen-like wise men, each of them providing a unique perspective on a scene that is, in Western culture, the central symbol for good tidings of great joy. Rather than superimposing later Christian concepts onto the Annunciation and Nativity scenes, he imagines Mary and Joseph experiencing the angelic message as a young Jewish woman and man living in the year 4 bce might have experienced it, with terror, dismay, and ultimate acceptance. In this context, their yes becomes an act of great moral courage. Readers of every background will be enchanted by this startlingly beautiful reimagining of the Christmas tale.

"One day in Heaven, a long time ago God summoned three angels before Him. He told them to sing of the birth of His son And to take Him three gifts to adore Him." So starts The Three Gifts, a gentle narrative poem that tells the story of the Angel messengers sent by the Lord to deliver three special gifts in celebration of the birth of the Baby Jesus. The last and most exceptional of the gifts contains a secret that holds a moving message for us all. Inspired by the Angel Blocks ornament collaboration between Kathie Lee and Michael Storrings, the well-known designer of highly collectible Christmas ornaments, this beautifully illustrated book is a perfect holiday gift for all ages.

The hilarious Kinky Friedman puts a new twist on the holiday spirit in his inimitably Kinky way in The Christmas Pig. King Jonjo Mayo the First is in a bind. Every Christmas, he commissions an artist to paint a traditional nativity scene to be dramatically revealed after midnight mass. This year, though, the date is mere weeks away, and he still has not yet found his painter. The king decides to take a chance on a peculiar, mute boy whose artistic genius and clairvoyance are rumored throughout the kingdom. He sends three valiant, if begrudging, knights to seek out the boy in the remote countryside. Finally, they find Benjamin—and he is, indeed, peculiar. Nobody knows if the child is up to the task, but the king's Christmas tradition—and Benjamin himself—might just be saved by a Christmas miracle that comes in the form of a very special pig, who is rather peculiar herself.