THE RAGAMUFFIN'S CHRISTMAS

"Merry Christmas!"
Welcome to the official site for author Craig Daliessio and his wonderful book;
"The Ragamuffin's Christmas"

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Welcome

                                           Hello and welcome to "A Ragamuffin Christmas"!
       "A Ragamuffin Christmas" is my newest book and it's my first fiction. I am very proud of this project. My hope, all along the way, was to capture a very different view of the Christmas Holidays, with a special focus on the Advent Season.
       I was raised a Protestant but grew up in the heavily Catholic / Orthodox Northeast. (I was born in Philadelphia and grew up nearby in Wilmington, Delaware) So I have the rather unique perspective of having observed the Advent while not a practicing Catholic. From my earliest memories we marked the 24 days before Christmas with those wonderful little Advent Calenders where you open a door for each new day and see what scene of the season lay behind.
       It is a tradition I continued with my own daughter after I became a dad. It's one of those simple little things that mark the arrival of the most wonderful of all Holidays, Christmas. Even the word itself is magical.
You never see that word attached to anything bad. "The Christmas Plague" or "The Christmas Massacre". Those aren't great titles of literary fame. No, Christmas evokes so many wonderful memories.
       I have wondered for many years now about the mystical elements of this season. There are so many. Family gatherings, traditions, a renewed spiritual awakening in our hearts, giving gifts to those we love. But under it all there is one thing that separates this holiday from all others on the Christian Calender...the baby.
       This holiday centers around a baby boy born to a virgin teenager and her carpenter husband. They were poor and he was born in a sheep pen. There were hushed whispers of illegitimacy surrounding his arrival. There was no room anywhere for them. He was heralded by angels to a bunch of smelly shepherds in a field at night. And this is my Savior!
       He would grow up in his father's carpenters shop, call His disciples, live without a home, be a friend to the worst of humanity, on purpose, and be killed on the town garbage heap, while they pulled out his beard and spit ran down his face. And I have trusted my soul to this man... 
       That He would die for me is surpassed only in wonder by the fact that He ever decided to come in the first place. And He came as a baby. So that I could touch Him, hold Him, coddle him,
                                                     ...and not be afraid of Him. 
       That  is the story of "A Ragamuffin Christmas". A look into 24 different lives as they are mystically transplanted back in time to the very night Christ was born, how they are affected by the very Son of God, just minutes old, and what that means to me and you.
       It's a very different Christmas Story...and whether you've met this baby-King already or you are just getting acquainted, this story will change your life.  I'm glad you are here...the story begins very soon.

                                                                    Craig Daliessio

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