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Stories Behind the Great Traditions of Christmas
- Discovering the History of Our Favorite Christmas Celebrations
- Narrated by: Paul Michael
- Length: 5 hrs and 25 mins
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Publisher's summary
Enhance your holiday celebrations as you discover the real story behind some of your most beloved Christmas customs and how they all point to Christ.
Ever wonder where some of our unique and meaningful Christmas traditions come from?
Why are red and green popular colors of the season?
Why is exchanging gifts a family tradition?
The golden traditions of Christmas—gifts, wreaths, stockings, carols, mistletoe, and more—infuse your celebration of the season with meaning and glowing memories. And, in ways you may not realize, they also point you to the birth of Christ. Stories Behind the Great Traditions of Christmas reveals the people, places, and events that shaped the best-loved customs of this merriest of holidays.
Stories Behind the Great Traditions of Christmas includes insights about:
- Gift giving
- Christmas trees
- Caroling
- Nativity scenes
- Yule logs
- Stockings
- Advent wreaths
- Mistletoe
- Holly, and more!
You will discover how:
- After eighteen centuries of all but ignoring the event, churches began to open the door for believers to commemorate Jesus’ incarnation
- The evergreen tree, once a central theme in the worship practices of pagan cultures, came to represent the everlasting love of God
- The magi's three gifts—gold, frankincense, and myrrh—are filled with spiritual symbolism
Stories Behind the Great Traditions of Christmas is the perfect gift to infuse your celebration with spiritual insights, true-life tales, and captivating legends to intrigue you and your family. Bring new luster and depth to your modern traditions while you celebrate Jesus' birth. The traditions of Christmas lend beauty, awe, and hope to the holiday, causing people all over the world to anticipate it with joy. Warm your heart as you rediscover the true and eternal significance of Christmas.
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A stunning and sure to be controversial book that pieces together, through more than two dozen 19th-century diaries, letters, albums, minute books, and quilts left by first-generation Latter-day Saints, or Mormons, the never before told story of the earliest days of the women of Mormon "plural marriage", whose right to vote in the state of Utah was given to them by a Mormon-dominated legislature as an outgrowth of polygamy in 1870, 50 years ahead of the vote nationally ratified by Congress.
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Well-behaved women seldom write in diaries
- By Darwin8u on 01-13-17
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Dream
- Discovering God's Purpose for Your Life
- By: Dutch Sheets
- Narrated by: Tom Parks
- Length: 4 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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What happened to us? Why are so many people let down by life? We once had dreams — important dreams that gave us purpose — but somehow we got off track. It’s certainly not what God wants for us. But here we are, chasing earthly applause when we could be experiencing heaven’s approval.If you want confidence in knowing God’s will, if you want each day to count, journey with Dutch Sheets as he presents soul-stirring lessons from the Bible and godly dreamers of today.
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Challenging and Encouraging
- By 7 Hands on 02-05-13
By: Dutch Sheets
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The Sistine Secrets
- Michelangelo's Forbidden Messages in the Heart of the Vatican
- By: Benjamin Blech, Roy Doliner
- Narrated by: James Cameron Stewart
- Length: 11 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Five hundred years ago, Michelangelo began work on a painting that became one of the most famous pieces of art in the world - the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Every year millions of people come to see Michelangelo's Sistine ceiling, which is the largest fresco painting on earth in the holiest of Christianity's chapels; yet there is not one single Christian image in this vast, magnificent artwork.
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Well-researched!
- By Natalie K. on 08-28-17
By: Benjamin Blech, and others
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Untie the Strong Woman
- Blessed Mother's Immaculate Love for the Wild Soul
- By: Clarissa Pinkola Estés
- Narrated by: Clarissa Pinkola Estes
- Length: 4 hrs and 59 mins
- Original Recording
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"There is a promise Holy Mother makes to us," explains Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes, "that any soul needing comfort, vision, guidance or strength, can cry out to her, flee to her protection, and Blessed Mother will immediately arrive with veils flying. She will place us under her mantle for refuge, and give us the warmth of her most compassionate touch, and strong guidance about how to go by the soul's lights." Untie the Strong Woman is Dr. Estes' invitation to come together under the shelter of The Mother - whether she appears to us as the Madonna, Our Lady of Guadalupe....
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Powerfully Moving
- By Aimée LaVallée on 04-24-17
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Grounded
- Finding God in the World - A Spiritual Revolution
- By: Diana Butler Bass
- Narrated by: Diana Butler Bass
- Length: 11 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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The headlines are clear: Religion is on the decline in America as many people leave behind traditional religious practices. In this follow-up to her critically acclaimed book Christianity After Religion, Diana Butler Bass argues that what appears to be a decline actually signals a major transformation in how people understand God. The distant God of conventional religion has given way to a more intimate sense of the sacred with us in the world.
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Audiobook Revolutionary
- By JJ James on 05-29-18
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They Were Christians
- The Inspiring Faith of Men and Women Who Changed the World
- By: Cristobal Krusen
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 6 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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What do Abraham Lincoln, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Louis Pasteur, Frederick Douglass, Florence Nightingale, and John D. Rockefeller, Sr., all have in common? They all changed the world - and they were all Christians. Now the little-known stories of faith behind 12 influential people of history are available in one inspiring volume. They Were Christians reveals the faith-filled motivations behind some of the most outstanding political, scientific, and humanitarian contributions of history.
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Great book
- By Amazon Customer on 12-10-18
By: Cristobal Krusen
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Out of Sorts
- Making Peace with an Evolving Faith
- By: Sarah Bessey
- Narrated by: Joell A. Jacob
- Length: 7 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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In Out of Sorts, Sarah Bessey, award-winning blogger and author of Jesus Feminist, helps us grapple with core Christian issues using a mixture of beautiful storytelling and biblical teaching. As she candidly shares her wrestlings with core issues - such as who Jesus is, what place the church has in our lives, how to disagree yet remain within a community, and how to love the Bible for what it is rather than what we want it to be - she teaches us how to walk courageously through our own tough questions.
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Sounded like a robot reading this!
- By KNimblett on 02-23-16
By: Sarah Bessey
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God’s Secretaries
- The Making of the King James Bible
- By: Adam Nicolson
- Narrated by: Clive Chafer
- Length: 8 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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It is the greatest work of English prose ever written, and it is no coincidence that the translation was made at the moment “Englishness” and the English language had come into its first passionate maturity. Boisterous, elegant, subtle, majestic, finely nuanced, sonorous, and musical, the English of Jacobean England has a more encompassing idea of its own reach and scope than any before or since. It is a form of the language that drips with potency and sensitivity. The age, with all its conflicts, explains the book.
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Not what I was expecting
- By Greg on 12-29-13
By: Adam Nicolson
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The Autobiography of Santa Claus
- By: Jeff Guinn
- Narrated by: John H. Mayer
- Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Jump on Santa's sleigh for a journey through 17 centuries of Christmas magic!
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History and Christmas
- By Mara on 12-14-08
By: Jeff Guinn
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Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea
- Why the Greeks Matter
- By: Thomas Cahill
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 7 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Best selling history writer Thomas Cahill continues his series on the roots of Western civilization with this volume about the contributions of ancient Greece to the development of contemporary culture. Tracing the origin of Greek culture in the migrations of armed Indo-European horsemen into Attica and the Peloponnesian peninsula, he follows their progress into the creation of the Greek city-states, the refinement of their machinery of war, and the flowering of intellectual and artistic culture.
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Super super
- By Richard on 12-28-03
By: Thomas Cahill
What listeners say about Stories Behind the Great Traditions of Christmas
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Eric
- 12-26-23
Good scholarship and a casual style
I liked the variety and new things I learned, especially how Christmas came to be celebrated today and origins of songs like “12 Days of Christmas”
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- Eric D Ray
- 12-23-23
insight into traditions
I was amazed to hear the depth of the back stories of each segment. this presentation enhanced my Christmas celebration and enriched my desire to know more
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- Amazon Customer
- 01-31-24
Very interesting
Enjoyed very much, the narrator was easy to listen to. Something I’ll listen to many times.
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- Anonymous User
- 10-06-24
History of traditions
Narrators voice and content. Very enjoyable! Will most likely listen to it again. Will search out other titles by this author.
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- Roy Tweedy
- 12-31-22
A Great History Book on Christmas.
This Audible book gives the entire history of Christmas. Starting out before Christ was Born.
There are lots of worderful Stories and History in this book. Give it a Listen.
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1 person found this helpful