Sharing The Characters of Christmas
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This week on our Christmas holiday version of Living the Dream, we've got a couple of really special treats for you. First of all, you're going to hear from the author of a beautiful new book that really will help you to stop and focus and think about Christmas in a special way amid all the hustle and bustle.

And then Anna, a.k.a. Lil Will, and I are going to talk about Christmas traditions, yours and ours, and have some interaction with folks from Twitter and Facebook as well. So we are excited to have all of that coming up. We want to kick you off with Dan Darling, who is the author of this new book, The Characters of Christmas, The Unlikely People Caught Up in the Story of Jesus.

He's also the Vice President of Communications for the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. He writes, you'll see his pieces all over the place. He's a contributor. He's also a teaching pastor, a husband, and father of four. Dan, welcome. And all of that, I'm surprised that you could make time for us, but we're glad to have you. Shannon, it's so great to be here with you on the podcast and

I'm grateful to talk about Christmas. Yeah, so let's talk about this because I am guilty of this too. You and I were chatting before about I've still got so many Christmas presents to buy and things to ship and things to mail. And, you know, it gets to be a little bit overwhelming. But I found your book was so special in that it really is about refocusing on these main characters of Christmas, the original meaning of Christmas.

And many of us, whether in church or not, you've heard the story about Mary and Joseph and maybe Jesus. But you take time in this book, The Characters of Christmas, to talk about each of these people in a much more personal, substantive way. So where did you get the idea to do this book? Well, first, I've always loved Christmas. I mean, I just cannot wait for December to roll around. I'm listening to Christmas music, you know, back in October, unashamedly. You're my clan. You're my tribe. I'm doing it, too. I do.

I've always loved Christmas, and I've always been intrigued by character profiles and have wondered, you know, all these people who are in our nativity sets or adorn our Christmas cards or our kids dress up like them in our Christmas pageants, who were these people? You know, we've kind of made them famous in the last 2000s.

2,000 plus years, but we have to remember in the first century, they were just ordinary people living their lives who were nevertheless part of the story that God was writing about Christmas. And so I just wanted to explore that and think about how each of them, you know, what they say about Jesus, but also how they really, what they say about us as well. And so often, rightfully so, there's a lot of attention on Mary, this young woman who

was thrust into a miraculous situation. If you're a person of faith and you believe all that we believe came through her, it's pretty amazing. But I always think about Joseph, too, because I think about this young guy who was her fiancé. I mean, what must he be thinking? We know part of the story about the angel coming to him. And talk a little bit about Joseph and kind of his role in this whole thing.

Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned Joseph, because he is kind of obscure even now. I mean, there may be one or two songs written about him, but he played a very significant role. First of all, we know from him that he was a good man, a righteous man. The Bible says he always did the next right thing. And so what he did with Mary was...

When he found out that she was pregnant, he was going to put her away privately, which was the honorable thing to do, but the harder thing. He would have to bear some shame for his pregnancy.

wife, you know, his betrothed having a baby that was not his. Then when the angel visited him, it says he immediately got up and married her, and he's willing to take on Mary and this baby and be a father to a child that's not his own. And we think of Jesus as being fully human and fully divine. In Jesus' humanity, he had to have a father, and Joseph was the one who raised him, in a sense. In fact, later in the Gospels, he's referred to as the carpenter's son. And

And so we know that he was a good father and really a great example of an ordinary person sort of just obeying what he was told, obeying God and really serving others. And what about Mary, maybe, have we not thought about or considered from her viewpoint?

Well, I think with Mary, you know, she was, we have to consider what was she saying yes to? Yes, she was accepting this beautiful honor of being the mother of the Son of God, but she was also saying yes to a life of great hardship. She would not be understood, even by her family. She got a visit from the angel and so did Joseph, but her parents didn't, her family didn't.

They wouldn't really accept, I don't think, most people, the idea that the baby was from God. And then she'd have to watch her son grow up and be persecuted, be marginalized in her community, be really kind of an object of scorn. And then she's there at the foot of the cross watching Jesus be crucified, watching the soldiers take his body off the cross. The prophet Simeon said to her in the temple when he was

praying over her and Jesus that a sword would pierce her soul. In other words, what she was saying yes to was really a lifetime of really difficulty and hardship, but she did it because she knew and believed that this baby was the Son of God, that this was the long-awaited, promised one who'd come to save his people from their sins.

Yeah, you mentioned Simeon, and again, not someone who traditionally is really a huge part of the Christmas story that most people know, especially if they're not as familiar with it. But Anna as well, who were these characters? They kind of leap onto the drama of Christmas almost out of nowhere. But we do know that it says about Simeon that he...

He apparently believed the promises, the prophecies that said, unto us a child will be born, unto us a son is given. And he's waiting in the temple year after year, day after day. People probably think he's a little crazy. You know, here's that old guy over there. He really believes this stuff.

And then one day the Holy Spirit whispers to him that this is the couple and this is the child. And it's interesting what he says when he prays over them. He says, now I can die. In other words, now that I've met Jesus, I'm at peace with my life, peace with my own mortality. And it's very similar with Anna. She was probably a widow. It says she was a prophetess. She would speak truth.

Widows did not have many resources back then. There was no Social Security or other kind of safety nets for them. But she, too, believed the promises. Inexplicably, at a time when everybody was cynical, people were not believing, they were under the rule of Rome, she clung to those promises and was able to see Jesus before she died.

And of course, there are the wise men traditionally portrayed as three wise men who were traveling through the countryside to try to find baby Jesus or, you know, following the star. What more do we need to know about their story? And I don't even know that we know how many there were or exactly where they all came from.

Yeah, so we typically say that there's three because of the three gifts and because of the beautiful hymn, which is still okay to sing, by the way. It's one of my favorites. But there are probably more than three, probably a big entourage, enough to kind of alert and scare Herod when they came to Jerusalem. We do know they're from the East. They're probably philosophers, really smart thought leaders, and men of wealth and means. What's commendable about them is that they...

took a lot of time and expense to travel to follow and seek out the truth wherever it would lead, which meant traveling all the way to Jerusalem and then going to Bethlehem. And then when they got there, they worshipped Jesus. Now just think about this. These are really sophisticated, wise, educated men who nevertheless put all that aside and worshipped

this baby because they believed that he was the Son of God. It's a real contrast to Herod, who was threatened by baby Jesus, and here are the wise men who welcome him and worship him. And I think it's a picture for us of, if you're willing to honestly seek out the truth, I think God will point you to the truth, and ultimately, I believe as a Christian, that it leads back to Jesus.

Yeah, and it's so easy for all that all to get lost in the shuffle. Last week I was working in New York, and so Lil Will, who's coming up in just a few minutes on the podcast, she and I and Melissa, our magician who does hair and makeup for us, we all went to the Rockettes at Radio City Music Hall. They hadn't been before, and I thought, oh, this will get us in the holiday mood. It's fantastic. And if you've seen it,

But it's still amazing to me that in 2019, in the middle of the show, all of a sudden is a live nativity scene. And it's not something that lasts 30 seconds. I mean, there are live sheep and camels, and there's a whole processional of the baby Jesus. There's a reading. It looks like it's from Luke 2, you know, the traditional Christmas story. And all of these people coming and bowing down in worship and presenting these gifts to baby Jesus. Mm-hmm.

And, you know, Anna and I talked about the fact that it's kind of sad that we have to be so surprised in 2019 that a big commercialized production like that in the middle of New York City is still portraying that. And I keep thinking, gosh, I can't believe that there hasn't been some kind of pressure on them to strip this out and just stick to the Santa and the

fantastic Rockettes dancing and all the fun things that they do. But beautiful to me that all these years and years into the traditions of the Rockettes, that nativity scene, which is pretty extended, is still a part of that. And I think that there's definitely still a hunger for people to reconnect with what Christmas and the celebration of Christmas was really originally about.

You're right. I mean, this is the one time of year where most, if not all of the world, at least acknowledges that Jesus was born and is forced to kind of lean in a little bit and say, okay, what is this? What's going on here? And I think the story of Jesus...

continually captivates everybody. It's still a point of discussion around the world, even in a very secular age, even a very sophisticated age. And I think for Christians, it's an opportunity for us to be cheerful about it and say, we really believe this is true.

You know, the world is broken and difficult and violent, just like it was when Jesus came. And the story of Christmas is not that everything's fine, everything's sentimental. I think of people this Christmas who are facing very difficult challenges. Maybe they lost a loved one. Maybe there's a...

a place under the Christmas tree that's missing, or maybe there's financial challenges or relational issues. And the story of Christmas is not that we're just all trying to make like we're happy, but that God entered into our world, a difficult, violent, corrupt, and broken world, and he enters into our pain, and that this child really is the hope that is renewing and restoring and making the world as it should be.

Yeah, and as you said, I mean, there are people always through the holidays who are suffering, and it's a very tender time for a lot of folks who are going through loss. And it's a time for us to do more to reach out to other people and share good news with them. And again, the book is The Characters of Christmas. Dan Darling, thank you so much for joining us. I think for people who really want to refocus, it's a great read. It's a fun thing to share with family and friends and really get to the heart of Christmas. So I'm glad that you wrote it.

Well, thank you, Shannon. I really appreciate it, and thank you for engaging with the book and having me on. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas to you. Thanks, Dan. Okay, now on Living the Bream, Lil' Will, otherwise known as Anna, is my sidekick in all that happens and all that we do in life. She was with me at the Rockettes. What did you think of the show? I loved it. It was getting us in the Christmas spirit. We are so busy. I feel like between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year, with there only being four weeks, everything has felt crazy.

rushed and crammed. So to be able to get in the holiday spirit was good. Yeah. And so last year I boycotted Christmas cards. I was like, I'm not doing that because I'm exhausted and I freaking have no time to do it. I don't have time to get any professional photos or anything like that. So my husband, he's really into it. And I'm like,

okay, well, it's all you then. I'm not doing, I'm not reworking the address list, figuring out who moved and which cards are going to bump back to us. I don't know. We just pick a picture. We have whatever. So Shell, anyone who knows Sheldon from last year who listened to this podcast last year knows that

Sheldon and I completely surprised you. Yes, you did. You guys were like, we're on it. Completely. They take over the Christmas cards. Had a few little things to deal with, but pulled it off. But again, they got it done. And it was beautiful because Lil Will is creative, among other things. And she likes to mock up a Christmas card or eight to select. I do love doing Christmas cards. Don't have a family of my own right now. Do it for you. But you know what we refer to you as, fake daughter, FD, because we've semi-adopted you. I hope your parents are okay with that. So this year, again, getting to the crunch time, like we're not going to do this.

And Anna is persistent, like, I'm coming over and I'm taking a picture. She brings over her iPhone, which takes the best pictures in portrait mode. I'm trying to wrangle the dog, who is a basically white. She's English cream, a white lab. She looks like a little polar bear with her white fur and her black nose. She decides to get in the mud the morning that you're coming over for the picture. And I'm like, dang it, dog. So.

So somehow, miraculously, with Anna and Shell, we've pulled together the Christmas cards. Now, they haven't actually gone out. They haven't gone out. But the stamps came today and they're sitting on the table. They're ready to go.

And we'll put out a digital version for everybody on Instagram and Twitter and Facebook. Yeah, we'll put out a digital version. Because I can't. Everyone's address out there. But listen, we love the interaction with you guys. We did this last Christmas, too. We asked you on Twitter and Facebook what some of your traditions are. And we want to share those and maybe talk about some of ours, too. So why don't we start with Twitter? Twitter it is. Okay, Kevin. Kevin, please forgive me. I don't know if it's Belondier.com.

Well, and dear, I don't know, Kevin, but you can tweet and let me know if you hear that we use your tweet. He says, coming from a Cuban family in Miami, we cooked Lechon, I think is how you say it. I don't know. Which is pig every single year with some Cuban rice and black beans. We dance and party all night. So we hug each other and say Merry Christmas when the clock strikes 12. I love that idea of that. Makes me think of New Year's except for Christmas time. I know. So fun. There are a lot of these that have to do with food. Anna, does your family have food traditions? Yes.

We have some food traditions. I mean, I love almost all food, as you know. She does. This girl's not a picky eater. But we mostly have some other traditions that involve trees and the Advent book. And my mom submitted one, so we might get to that later. Yes, let's go. No, no, let's go to that. Oh, wow. And Facebook. Facebook. Becky Willey.

We know her as Mama Will. We do. She says, reading the Advent book together every day in December, each day has a door to open and is word for word from the Bible. Tell us about it, Hannah. So that's one of my favorite traditions growing up. And if you have a family and you're a family of faith, I would really recommend doing this with your kids and your children because it's a fun and easy way for them to know and remember God's Word and Scripture. And to this day, I know everything.

the Christmas story by heart because of the Advent book. So not only was that neat, of course, being super competitive, I would... You? Super competitive? I would... I had two older sisters, and each day somebody would take a different door, and I would sneak down before Mom got it out, and I'd count how many days and which door I had to start on so I could have the 25th. Oh, you were so sneaky, Snake. Yeah, not the best, but...

Learned a lot of good things through reading it. It's a good lesson from Jesus to sneak down and read the Advent book and time it so that you get to read Christmas. I love it. What about, David Jones says, Christmas Eve candlelight service. I think that's an all-time for most, a lot of people in America who participate in a Christmas Eve candlelight service. I know.

I know growing up, we would always sing Silent Night. And the band would drop out and it would just be the voices singing. And there's nothing like that. Yeah. And you light a few candles and then you spread them through the audience, each lighting others. And then you watch the whole sanctuary or if you're inside or outside. I've been to outdoor ones as well. And it just kind of lights up the whole area by candlelight. And it's such a beautiful thing. And I think in that moment, all is calm and all is bright. Yeah.

and that gets lost in the hustle and bustle. It does. We are going to be at the beach this year for Christmas Eve and Christmas. I do love it, and there's a beautiful little church that we go to there, but it's so crowded for Christmas Eve because every family shows up there that we had it outside. There were services inside, but everybody, all the overflow was outside, and we still had our candles out there, and we lit them and stuff. It was beautiful. I don't think you could do that in Iowa.

You're going to be inside in Iowa, honey child. You will not be outside. Samuel R. from Twitter submitted one and his holiday tradition was to sleep in all day. And I read that and I was like, this is Shannon Bream's type of tradition. Oh, I love Samuel. Anna and I will tell you, we never ever hardly get a full night's sleep or get enough sleep just because we love what we do, but we're busy all the time. So Samuel, you are my spirit animal. Sleep all day. I'll probably do a little

do a little bit of that. My mom's going to want us to have on matching pajamas and take pictures. Yeah. I don't know if that's going to happen, but... A lot of traditions include that. She can come take a picture of me in my bed in my Christmas dress. Leave me in there as long as possible. That's great. All right, what else do we have? We have Tex Bex OBX. It says, I take a stack of old VHS home movies, and yes, I know what VHS home movies are, Shannon. They haven't been making those since you were alive, have they? For past holidays, and play them.

And they said it's bittersweet as more than half the people in the videos are gone now, but for a few hours, like a time machine to go back and be in the room with them. I love that. I loved that when I read it. Yeah. And my wedding video is on VHS because that's how old I am. There you go. I don't even know how I'm going to watch it anymore. Yeah. I need to get that converted. I love it. Textbacks.

An old VHS player. That is fantastic. It also reminds me of one of my favorite, favorite movies, which is Christmas Vacation, where Clark Griswold gets locked in the attic by accident when everybody else goes shopping. And he gets out the old, even older than VHS, they're like the old...

where you'd have the film on reels, like 5mm or whatever, where you'd put them on a projector and actually watch them. And he's stuck up there all day until they come home and save him. And he watches the old movies and he's crying, seeing his old mom and dad and his grandparents and stuff. It's very sweet. Which, by the way, is one of the best Christmas movies, which is one of our traditions. We have two we watch every year. Christmas Vacation, which is amazing and a classic. And My Late Father was Clark W. Criswell, for sure. And White Christmas. I love it.

You know, Bing Crosby and those guys. I love to sing. Danny Kaye and, you know, everybody. Rosemary Clooney and Vera. I can't remember her last name, but amazing, amazing dancer. I just love old-fashioned stuff where you could watch movies and not be afraid that there were going to be naked body parts or F-bombs. True. It's interesting to see all the different people who have the old movies as their tradition, but also people who have Elf and Home Alone and the newer ones. Right, right, right.

Just whatever your taste. Do you guys have one that you watch every year? We don't have, we don't really do Christmas movie every year. One of my favorites, which sounds super shallow, but I love it, is we would go to Starbucks. We have three girls in my family growing up. So we'd all get our Starbucks drinks. We'd head over to Home Depot. Okay. Not even the Christmas tree farm. Where's this going? And we'd pick our Christmas tree from Home Depot. Okay.

Okay. And then go home. And we got an ornament every year that represented something special that happened that year in our life. And that's always fun when we were growing up to be able to go over. And I remember, oh, I played the piano this year. This is when I did volleyball. Or my sister had three different instruments for the three different years. And she never stuck with any of them. So we gave her a hard time for that. Okay.

I played the clarinet myself for a little while. I was one of them. It was not very successful. It's hard to hold on to the clarinet. You know, yeah, that's a tough one. David Freeman from Facebook said, we always let our kids open one present on Christmas Eve. Did you do that? We did that, and it was always pajamas. Oh, because then you can wear your matching pajamas next year. Exactly, except I'm kind of a little bit salty at my mom because this year she said, oh, now that we have a grandbaby in the family, no PJs for everyone else, just for grandkids now. Aww.

Baby Charlie is kicking it off now. He's the first. We get fuzzy socks this year and the grandkids get. I do love fuzzy socks. Listen, speaking of instruments, Carol Schwartz posted on Facebook and I believe that this is my own piano teacher, Carol Schwartz. I don't know how many Carol Schwartz are in the world, but I believe it's her. She said, we use our best heirloom china handed down from family and dress up the table. Also put ornaments on the tree from our travels all over the world. Love you. That's what tipped me off that this is probably Carol Schwartz, my piano teacher.

She is one of my favorite people on the planet. So amazing. So talented. I love this idea that she kept the ornaments from their travels around the world. We love to do that, too. When we go somewhere, we like to get ornaments. And then every year when you're unpacking and putting them on the tree, which we're not doing this year because we have a seven-month-old lab who is destroying the house, then you get to kind of relive the trip and think about what you saw, what you did, and you remember buying the ornaments. So it's good. I like it.

Speaking of that, that made me think of another one that just came up from Dolores Case. And she said, I have a tablecloth that everyone signs their name on every year. And during the year, I embroider their name in a certain color. I think it was noted. So it's ready for the next year. And she said, it's a family heirloom that's filled with loved ones from present and the past. I love that. That is such a great idea because I'm thinking, oh no, it'll get washed out. But if you have them and she embroiders it, then you have

And it's in their font and their writing. And I just think of people. I know you've talked a lot about your mom and how she was always just inviting people into your home. Just to see who over the years have been in your home for that season. Delores? Is that her name? Yeah, Delores Case. I love it. That is a great idea.

I thought this was cute. Chip Goodwin on Twitter said, when my kids were younger, my wife and I stuffed unwrapped toys in a huge red velvet bag with gold tassels and placed it carefully inside our fireplace half in, half out. On Christmas Day, the kids would race downstairs to see the bag yelling to me that Santa forgot his bag again.

How cute is that? I love that. Being someone of faith, don't get me wrong, I think that's the main reason for this season, personally. But one of my favorite parts of this Christmas spectacular in New York was the Santa scene. Love a good Santa scene. Oh, the Rockettes. If you haven't seen that, it's really cute. So many Santas, like a hundred on the stage. Just hilarious. And then they pop all around Radio City Music Hall. They're in the audience. They're in the aisles. They're everywhere. Santa is everywhere. That is good.

Let's see who else. Jaron Emhoff. We know Jaron. We do. She says, Dad reading the best Christmas pageant out loud as we sit around the tree on Christmas Eve, followed by watching It's a Wonderful Life. Total classic. Stories that remind unto you a child is born was and is a message to everyone that our greatest gifts in life are family and friends. I mean, that's such a good refocusing. I think when you're a little kid, it's easy to get all excited like,

What doll or what toy or what truck or what Barbie am I going to get? And I think the older you get, the more you realize it really is about, first of all, your faith if you're a person of faith for Christmas. But really being able to reach out and do things for other people makes me so much more excited than getting something for myself. Like I just get so excited thinking, oh, now I got the perfect person, this gift. Like I know this is what they really want.

That's the most fun to me. I love that. And I know we're almost out of time, but one more that just kind of ties into that, that was on Facebook. I'm going to get the name wrong, but I think it's Monoram Woo said that they say prayers for their country and especially all who defend it. And then they watch a Christmas movie. But I just love that as most people get to be with their family and friends on Christmas, but realizing that freedom isn't free. And a lot of those people don't get to be there with their loved ones, but we're thankful for their service and all they're doing for our country. Yeah, but I will say, Homer,

killed me in one of their movies because in all the movies that involve military families magically this dad got to come home even though he wasn't going to be home and I was just sort of thinking alright the dads they've been skyping with him through the movie or whatever he's going to be able to see them and they're just going to learn that you can still be together no matter where you are on the planet oh no he shows up and I'm like totally boohooing and losing it and don't at me for the Hallmark movies because I've watched a few this year I would say my favorite was Christmas at the Palace

set in New York City. If you have a favorite, if you've been watching, let me know. Netflix has some Christmas movies out too, giving Hallmark a little run for their money this year. And Lifetime too. I mean, you've got, there's a plethora. They're old and new, but sometime between now and Christmas, I hope to get to watch my two favorites because it's Vacation and White Christmas.

All right, that is it for us for now. Lil' Will. Merry Christmas. Happy holidays. Happy Hanukkah. Whatever you choose to celebrate from Shannon and I. Kwanzaa, New Year. There's so much that is so positive and happy this time of year. And I think that it gives us all a chance to be kinder to each other, to really think about the deeper things that matter to us in life. So Merry Christmas from us to you. We'll see you. We'll see you in 2020.

From the Fox News Podcast Network. I'm Ben Domenech, Fox News contributor and editor of the Transom.com daily newsletter. And I'm inviting you to join a conversation every week. It's the Ben Domenech Podcast. Subscribe and listen now by going to FoxNewsPodcast.com.