Simply Christmas: A Busy Mom’s Guide to Reclaiming the Peace of the Holidays
By Tama Fortner (Ink & Willow)
With Christmas 2020 tradition disruptions and 2021 supply chain interruptions, shippers and shops already emanate a sense of urgency. Instead of giving in to the stress, pressure and busyness that threaten to hijack this year’s celebration, consider reading Tama Fortner’s practical handbook. In Simply Christmas: A Busy Mom’s Guide to Reclaiming the Peace of the Holidays, the best-selling author presents 31 devotional thoughts filled with equal measures of inspiration and practical wisdom.
The busy Nashville mother begins with a letter-to-mama preface that invites the reader to pause and ponder the first Christmas and gives permission to “kick the pressures of perfection to the curb.” The four-page devotions that follow include brief themes, relevant Scriptures, related thoughts, short prayers, “remember” statements printed on beautiful holiday photographs, and “Reclaiming Christmas” paragraphs to consider and hopefully take to heart.
The devotionals display exceptional understanding of the pressure to create the ideal holiday and ultimate Christmas experience. However, Fortner’s skillful advice isn’t to eliminate but to select what’s essential, simplify as appropriate and savor special moments with intentionality and love. “Remember,” she writes, “Let Jesus be your calm in the Christmas storms.”
Tama Fortner offers Simply Christmas to help Christians not forget that the most important things aren’t things at all but instead are people—the people that first Christmas, the people we love and the people we want to be. Don’t miss this deceptively small but powerful book as a gift for yourself and women in your life. And while you’re shopping, consider picking up her children’s title Christmas Is Coming!
Kathy Robinson Hillman, former president
Texas WMU and Baptist General Convention of Texas
Waco
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