Musical Advent Calendar 2013 - Introduction

The First Sunday (and first day) of Advent in 2013 is Sunday, December 1. Advent is the season of preparation for the birth of Christ ("advent" comes from the Latin verb advenire, "to arrive"). It begins each liturgical year.

I am excited to announce that again this year I will be presenting a musical advent calendar to celebrate this season. Each day from December 1 through December 25, at 5 AM Central Time, I will post the link to a YouTube video of a different Advent- or Christmas-themed song. Note that all the selections intentionally contain text (rather than instrumental-only versions), and all the selected texts are intentionally sacred. I hope you will be able to use these posts in your own devotional time throughout the next few weeks.

I will tag all of the posts under the label "Musical Advent Calendar" so that you may sort those posts from all the rest by either selecting that label from the right sidebar or using this link. If you haven't already, you can subscribe to this blog and get all the new posts delivered directly to your inbox (though on a somewhat delayed schedule) - see the "Follow by Email" box below my picture to the right.

Please share your reactions to each song in the comments section, and share these posts with your friends and family members throughout Advent - and if you use Facebook or Twitter to do so, use the hashtag #musicadventcal.

May the joy of Christ's first coming and the hope of the second fill you this Advent!