"HOLY STABLE," by Heidi Hanseen, Devout Press, $17.95
OREM, Utah — Heidi Hanseen's "Christmas book" is not your ordinary holiday offering.
It's a story, a CD, a primer and a gift for people who want to incorporate the Nativity into their Christmas.
"I have eight children, and our holidays were hurried," Hanseen said. "I remember feeling a great letdown at the end of the holidays. I wanted to have a greater meaning in our holiday. This is one way to do that."
Packaged like a set of notecards, the "Holy Stable" is the illustrated simple story of the first Christmas that can be read as a story, a narration or used as the script for a production.
There are tips for organizing a production and suggestions for making the story work for whatever size of group is interested.
"Children can be lambs or angels. It's very flexible," she said.
The CD is a four-layer musical backdrop that includes a harpist, a flutist and violinist, hired by Hanseen to create something accessible for the family to the LDS stake program director. The first section is the complete story. The second is a shorter version minus the harp interludes. The third is an instrumental-only version, and the fourth is instrumental with cues for a narrator. There are also practice tracks for learning the chorus and the descant.
"I know some families with Christmas programs, and they're usually musicians. Our family was more into sports and athletics, so it was harder to make it work. This makes it easy for families like ours to do this kind of thing.
"It's also designed to mix and match. You can use what works for you."
Hanseen has invested significantly in the production of the CD and the photos that are currently on YouTube. Her daughter plays Mary, and her brother's daughter is the Baby Jesus. Her nieces and nephews play shepherds and kings.
She made some of the costumes and bought some.
She wrote the music and text.
The packet was newly released for this Christmas season and is available at Deseret Book and on Amazon.com.
Hanseen, who lives in the Windsor 2nd Ward in Orem, Utah, used the packet to help her put on a Nativity program for her ward. It was a success with only minimal rehearsals.
"We worked with a couple of the individual singers and then once with the whole group," Hanseen said. "It worked so well."
Hanseen said her chief goal with "Holy Stable" is to get Christ back into Christmas and along the way, since she is an active Mormon, to let the world know Mormons are Christians.
Her next goal is to write a prequel to the Christmas story.
For more information see www.HolyStable.com.