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    Christmas in Harmony
    Christmas in Harmony
    Christmas in Harmony
    Ebook78 pages1 hour

    Christmas in Harmony

    By Philip Gulley

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    Philip Gulley takes us to Harmony, Indiana, at Christmastime as inspiration strikes the inimitable Dale Hinshaw. Always looking for a way to increase the church's profit margins, Hinshaw brainstorms a progressive nativity scene that will involve the whole town, complete with a map like those for the Hollywood stars. Neither Pastor Sam Gardner nor the other members of the Harmony Friends meeting express any enthusiasm for this idea, but Dale is unstoppable. Meanwhile, Pastor Sam has his own concerns: he's having his annual argument with his wife, and he's worried that the four-slotted toaster he bought for her may be too lavish a gift.

    Amidst the bustle of the season, the citizens of Harmony experience the simple joys and sometime loneliness that often go unseen. Sam comes to the realization that Dale, in his own misguided way, is only trying to draw meaning from the eternal story of Christmas. "In this unsettled world, it is good to have this steadiness -- the Christmas Eve service, the peal of the bell. . . .There is a holiness to memory, a sense of God's presence in these mangers of the mind. Which might explain why it is that the occasions that change the least are often the very occasions that change us the most."

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateOct 13, 2009
    ISBN9780061741302
    Christmas in Harmony
    Author

    Philip Gulley

    Philip Gulley is a Quaker minister, writer, husband, and father. He is the bestselling author of Front Porch Tales, the acclaimed Harmony series, and is coauthor of If Grace Is True and If God Is Love. Gulley lives with his wife and two sons in Indiana, and is a frequent speaker at churches, colleges, and retreat centers across the country.

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    Reviews for Christmas in Harmony

    4/5

    56 ratings7 reviews

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    • 4/5
      As amazing as always. Reading books in this series is like coming home to old friends.
    • 5/5
      Don't look at the warm and lovely cover of this Christmas novella and get the notion that it must just be a sweet, sweet, sweet little holiday tale.Not unlike other books in the Harmony series, this one is ironic. A tad irreverent in a spot or two (but not vulgar). Downright hilarious. And it has a poignant thread running through it that, doggone it, left me with a bona fide tear in my eye.Now, also like one other book in the series so far, Sam's first-person narration is fine for himself, but it doesn't really make sense when he starts narrating about other people and somehow knows their thoughts. There's also a bit of trouble with verb tenses, when the narration of one event or another will switch from present to past tense or vise versa.Nevertheless, I found it to be such a satisfying read, not limited to the warm sentiments reflected in the lovely cover but altogether warm (and hilarious!) and lovely just the same.
    • 5/5
      ALLLL of Philip Gulley's books are worth the read. You will laugh,chuckle and giggle all the way thru. His characters are believable and we ll know people like them.His stories are sentimental.
      Pick a book by Gulley and enjoy the chuckles and sentiments.
    • 3/5
      I love this series set in Harmony, Indiana, and featuring Pastor Sam Gardner, his family and his Quaker congregation at Harmony Friends Meeting. In this installment, the board of elders has taken Dale Hinshaw’s suggestion (demand?) to skip the Christmas Eve service in favor of a “progressive Nativity Scene.” Well, it started as just a live Nativity scene, but he realized it was too big to house in one location (the local park being unavailable for a religious display). So Dale has built a manger in his yard, with the animals housed at Sam’s house, the Holy Family at Asa Peacock’s farm, the Wise Men at Bea’s home, and ending at Fern’s house where the Friendly Women would sell hot chocolate and cookies. With Dale in charge, things are bound to go wrong, and Sam will be left trying to clean up the mess – and I’m not just talking about the pigs in his garage. But, regardless, Sam will find the meaning in Christmas, and he will be reminded of the joys of the season, and the reason we celebrate the Birth of Jesus. It’s a charming, quick read, full of humor and tenderness. Perfect for this holiday season. P.S. I know this is a re-read for me, but I have no idea when I first read it. Perhaps a year or so after it was first published.
    • 5/5
      What a great book to read this time of year. As Pastor Sam Gardner reminiscences about Christmases growing up in the small town of Harmony, we get insight into the current changes his congregation are planning this year. Dale Hinshaw, wants to have a progressive Nativity scene instead of the usual Christmas celebration. This book is incredibly funny, especially when we find out how this Nativity scene affects the different people living in Harmony, including the Pastor. I thinks it's been my favorite Christmas story in 2015.
    • 1/5
      Pointless story. Choose a different Christmas story from the many better authors in the world.
    • 4/5
      This short Christmas story stands out of time in Philip Gulley's wonderful Harmony series, though it was published around the time that the third novel in the series, Signs and Wonders, was published. In this simple Christmas tale, long-suffering Quaker pastor Sam Gardner deals with another hair-brained evangelism scheme from one of the elders, the irrepressible Dale Hinshaw.Seeking to do something bold, and financially rewarding, with the annual Christmas Eve service, Dale suggests a living Nativity scene. The catch is that no one's yard is large enough to accomodate all the characters and animals that Dale envisions. Instead of getting smaller, he imagines an even larger project, complete with floodlights, audio equipment, radio broadcast, and a $10 map of the event.This is a whimsical Christmas tale told in the gentle spirit of the rest of the Harmony novels. Unlike other Christmas stories, it does not beat its moral over everyone's head. But despite this noticeable restraint, which makes the story feel more natural than most other Christmas-branded stories, the short novella is not quite up to the quality of Gulley's other novels -- not nearly as perfect as Just Shy of Harmony and without the memorable hysterical moments of Signs and Wonders. Still, it has a quiet charm and is worth the hour it takes to read.

    Book preview

    Christmas in Harmony - Philip Gulley

    One

    Christmas in Harmony

    My first memory of Christmas was in 1966. I was five years old and standing in line at Kivett’s Five and Dime with my mother and brother, Roger, waiting to see Santa Claus, who looked suspiciously like Bud Matthews, the man in our town who did odd jobs. He smelled like Bud Matthews, too—a blend of Granger pipe tobacco, Old Spice aftershave, and sawdust.

    For a while, I believed Bud Matthews was Santa, and that he spent the off-season in our town patching roofs and fixing screen doors. Bud Matthews was jovial, like Santa, and had a bushy white beard. His wife looked like Mrs. Claus on the Coca-Cola calendar at the Rexall. Except they had a son named Ernie, who was in my grade, and everyone knew Santa didn’t have any kids, just elves and reindeer. Then when I was eight, Uly Grant took me behind the school and told me that Santa was really your parents, which explained why, despite my persistent requests, I never got the Old Timer jackknife with a genuine bottle opener I’d asked for.

    I needed the genuine bottle opener to open my pop bottles from Wilbur Matthews’s garage next to the Dairy Queen. Wilbur was Bud’s brother. I first met Wilbur at church. He was an usher and got to pick the boy who’d ring the bell to start the proceedings. I’d watch for his eye to settle on me and wait for his nod, which was the signal for me to slide out of my pew and fastwalk toward the foyer, where the rope dangled down from the bell.

    Pull her down a long ways, he’d say, then let her go all the way back up. You’ll get a good double ring that way.

    The bell was made in 1885 in Baltimore. We got it cheap from the Episcopalians, who’d come to town in 1890 to establish an Episcopalian beachhead and convert the masses. But they folded after two years, and we Quakers bought it at their auction. Wilbur’s grandfather had installed it, then had passed the bell ministry on to Wilbur’s father, who’d bequeathed it to Wilbur, who was childless. These days, Dale Hinshaw rings the bell every Sunday morning at ten-thirty, just as the Lord intended when He caused the Episcopalians to be vanquished so we could have their bell.

    It was Wilbur’s custom to climb the ladder up to the bell every Christmas Eve and view the town’s Christmas lights. If the night were clear, he could see the star on top of the silo at Peacock’s farm, two miles east of town. In my seventh year, Wilbur let me climb the ladder with him. He pointed out the star. I thought it was the star in the East, that the Baby Jesus had been born in the Peacocks’ barn. I wondered why the Peacocks hadn’t invited Mary and Joseph into their house to sleep on the foldout couch next to the freezer in the mudroom.

    Afterward, we’d retire to the basement and drink milk and eat Christmas cookies in the shape of angels Pastor Lindley’s wife had baked downstairs while we were upstairs listening to him read the second chapter of the Gospel of Luke. The cookies were still warm and doughy, the milk so cold it hurt my teeth. If an angel head broke off while she was lifting a cookie from the cookie sheet, she’d put extra sprinkles on it and save it for me.

    Pastor Lindley was a nice man, but seldom caused our faith to soar to new heights. If we wanted inspiration, we watched the Reverend Rod Duvall from Cleveland on Saturday nights after Lawrence Welk. We kept Pastor Lindley on because of his wife. We couldn’t imagine tromping downstairs on Christmas Eve and eating hard, cold, store-bought cookies that crunched like gravel when you bit into them.

    Though he was nice, Pastor Lindley had a few alarming tendencies, chief among them his sermons encouraging us to remember the reason for Christmas—that it wasn’t about presents and cookies, but about God sending his Son to be with us. I feared my parents might take his message to heart. I had nightmares about running down the stairs on Christmas morning to a tree with nothing under it, and my father sitting in his chair, a Bible balanced on his lap, smiling and saying, Your mother and I have decided that this year we’re just going to thank God for the gift of his Son, because that’s the only gift we really need.

    The Christmas Eve service was, and still is, held at eleven-thirty. If we timed it right, we’d be biting into the cookies just as the Frieda Hampton memorial clock bonged midnight. My first four years, I came attired in pajamas, wrapped in a blanket, and slept through the entire proceedings. By my fifth year, my parents said I was big enough to stay up. I nodded off through the Gospel of Luke, but revived in time to eat cookies, which is my pattern to this day.

    I have other memories of Christmas in Harmony. The men from the street department hanging plywood angels on the lightposts around the square. The Odd Fellows Lodge stringing Christmas lights back and forth across Main Street. The volunteer fire department hosing down the basketball court at the park so when it froze we could slide on the ice. Sorting through the pine trees at Grant’s Hardware to find one with four good sides. Joe Bryant, who was a Jehovah’s Witness and didn’t believe in Christmas, telling me I was

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