1. Gather 'Round, Ye Children 2. Come 3. Passover Us 4. So Long, Moses 5. Deliver Us 6. O Come, O Come, Emmanuel 7. Matthew's Begats 8. It Came To Pass 9. Labor Of Love 10. The Holly And The Ivy 11. While Shepherds Watched 12. Behold, The Lamb Of God 13. Reprise ========= This Christmas will be the fifth consecutive year that Ive performed what I hesitantly call a musical about the birth of Christ. The reason musical doesnt really work is that when we think of a musical we usually think of people dressed like donkeys and evenings full of badly delivered speaking parts. What I wrote is a concert that tells a story. Theres no speaking--only songs, some of which are intimate, some epic, some humorous, all with a purpose, which is to convey the true tall tale of the coming of God into the world. What makes this bunch of songs unique is that I wanted to remind (or teach) the audience that the story of Christmas doesnt begin with the birth of Jesus. Many people tend to forget or have never even learned that the entire Bible is about Jesus, not just the New Testament. So the musical begins with Moses and the symbolic story of the Passover (Passover Us) and works its way through the kings and the prophets with their many prophecies about the coming Messiah (So Long, Moses) to the awful four hundred years of silence before God told Mary shed be having a baby (Deliver Us). After the song called Matthews Begats, which lists the genealogy of Jesus, the story picks up in more familiar territory with Mary and Joseph and the actual birth (It Came To Pass, Labor of Love). The final song is called Behold, the Lamb of God, which ties together the Passover and the beauty and scope of the story.