Glad Tidings

Glad Tidings by Jennifer Flanders

About The Book:

These refreshingly candid Christmas letters have been resonating with readers for twenty-five years. Now available for the first time in a single volume, together with collected quotes, favorite traditions, family recipes, and other assorted lists and ideas, Glad Tidings has something for everyone. From the Author: As our family grew, my reasons for writing Christmas letters changed. I found myself writing not so much to inform, but to remember. Although I continued to share what I'd written with our family and friends, I was really writing for myself. The letters allowed me to freeze those moments in time that I wished never to forget - significant milestones, everyday graces, hard-learned lessons, crazy mistakes, funny remarks. I wrote down the things that made me think or smile or laugh or cry, the things I wanted to treasure in my heart and to ponder for years to come. It was a subtle shift, really, but it elicited an unexpected response. This willingness to share our foibles, to laugh at ourselves, to be sincerely vulnerable, allowed others to connect with us in a way that a brag sheet could never do. I guess it made our family more real and more accessible, because we began to get requests for extra copies of our updates. Never mind that most of our letters were four pages long - people were passing them around the dinner table, forwarding them to friends, saving them in three-ring binders. I had one friend tell me that her husband insisted on reading the entire thing aloud at his office party one Christmas. We even received postcards from complete strangers, asking to be put on our mailing list. It was really bizarre. But it explains why, when I decided to publish our first twenty-five letters in a book to give our kids and grandkids, my husband urged me to make copies available to people outside our family, as well.

My Thoughts:

Though I know it is nowhere near the holidays, I was still very interested in reading this book. It reads just as described; Holiday newsletters/updates to family and friends. I really enjoyed reading and learning about this family. You fall in love with this family. And I must admit, Jennifer (the mom) is my new idol. She does not hold anything back, whether it be embarrassing, sad, or happy. I also like how she subtly puts in scripture and things about God. She is a Christian woman, but not overbearingly so. A very good book, something I will pass along to family members, and it gives me inspiration to begin doing our own Christmas letters!

About The Author:

Jennifer Flanders graduated from Dallas Baptist University in 1986 with a bachelor's degree in mathematics. She completed two years of graduate work at SMU in the same field before she and her husband, Dr. Doug Flanders, started their family. She took her final final just two weeks before their first son was born. Since that time, the author has put her math background to good use by "staying home to multiply." (It has also come in handy as she's home schooled their twelve children, teaching counting to calculus, and everything in between). The author sang with the Dallas Symphony Chorus from 1986-1988, hosted a weekly radio program called "Schooling with Software" from 1996-1998, and edited a daily email digest with over 400 home schooling subscribers from 1997-2003. She now manages a family website (www.flandersfamily.info) devoted to sharing tips on organization, saving money, home schooling, and raising children, and often speaks on the same topics to local church and school groups. In her "spare" time, Jennifer enjoys reading, writing, playing with her kids and grandkids, visiting with her husband, and doing a wide variety of needle crafts.

Buy this book at Glad Tidings on Amazon.

I received a complimentary review copy of this book from BookCrash. All thoughts and opinions are my own.