By Steve Gillespie / managing editor
Which would you prefer — to be surrounded by expensive gifts and have Christmas dinner all alone, or to be without presents and know someone loves you?
Mike Huckabee says he would be shocked if anyone seriously chose the first option. And, with so much frustration over current economic conditions, he sees a need to think back on what matters most and the real meaning of Christmas.
The former Arkansas Governor and presidential candidate will be in Meridian Sunday promoting his new book, "A Simple Christmas: Twelve Stories That Celebrate the True Holiday Spirit."
A book signing is scheduled for 6:30 p.m.-7:30 p.m. at Books-A-Million, 131 South Frontage Road. Huckabee also will have a signing in Jackson on Monday from noon-1 p.m. at Sam's Club, 6360 Ridgewood Court Drive.
"What really matters when we get down to it is relationships," Huckabee said during a telephone interview about the new book.
"We need to remember that what makes life worth living is not expensive gifts, but knowing someone cares about us."
Huckabee offers readers 12 stories from his life that taught him lessons about what truly matters, not just during the holiday season, but year-round.
Stories in "A Simple Christmas" range from growing up in Arkansas, to his years as a young father with a cancer-stricken wife, his terms as governor of Arkansas and his run for the Republican presidential nomination last year.
Huckabee said he hopes his stories start people thinking about their own personal pilgrimage of life and start creating their own mental history of who they are.
"Christmas is a milestone that gives us a chance to look back," he said.
In the chapter titled Crisis, Huckabee recounts his wife Janet's battle with cancer in 1975. Christmas that year was one the Huckabees weren't sure they were even going to see together.
"That Christmas we learned that God's greatest gift to us is not to remove us from crisis, but to walk through crisis with us," Huckabee writes. "When we want Christmas to represent the easy path and the glittery gifts, we fail to understand that the real message of the Messiah is that the first Christmas was the opposite of easy. It was more about long stretches of darkness and loneliness, instead of the stunning stars that were eventually seen in the night sky. Before the angels sang and the shepherds saw stars, a scared couple fumbled their way around a strange town and endured pain and humiliation. True faith is forged in the furnace, not the showroom."
IN TOWN SUNDAY
Who: Mike Huckabee, 53, served as Arkansas governor 1996-2007, and was a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008. He is host of "Huckabee" on the Fox News Channel and the "Huckabee Report" on the ABC Radio Network.
What: Signing for his new book "A SImple Christmas: Twelve Stories That Celebrate the True Holiday Spirit," published by Sentinel. Other titles by Huckabee are "Do the Right Thing," "Character Makes a Difference," "From Hope to Higher Ground," and "Quit Digging Your Grave with a Knife and Fork."
Where: Books-A-Million, 131 South Frontage Road, Meridian.
When: Sunday, 6:30 p.m.-7:30 p.m.
