Re-telling the Christmas Story through the eyes of the Holy Family

For those of you who are thinking about an ideal Christmas gift, especially for book lovers, Geoffrey Philp's Twelve Poems and A Story for Christmas, is available in bookstores nationwide, online at Powell’s, Barnes and Noble, Amazon.com or iUniverse and independent booksellers such as Books and Books in Miami, Florida.

Twelve Poems and A Story for Christmas explores the meaning of the holy days through the lives of characters who are as near to us as our breath, and whose struggles with faith, doubt, and redemption, are as real as our own.

Emphasizing the humanity of its biblical and contemporary characters, the poems depict Mary and Joseph as a newlywed couple on a journey to their ancestral homeland where they are to be registered in a census decreed by a Roman tyrant. As they travel through the harsh landscape, they are joined by strangers who have been summoned by dreams, visions, and supernatural events to bear witness to a child whose birth they are told is destined to change the course of human history.

“A Story for Christmas,” which is set in Miami, describes the plight of Raymond Allen, a despairing musician and family man, who wrestles with his pride that is both the source of his sorrow and redemption.