Music often inspires my stories, especially country music.
One song in particular, Christmas Is Comin’ Round Again by Scotty McCreery, inspired me to write The Christmas Carving. The song speaks to the hope of healing and reconciliation that Christmas provides through the birth of Christ, God’s perfect lamb who would one day take our sins and reconcile man with God.
I love that message and wanted to incorporate it into a Christmas story.
Then I recalled hearing about the shooting of Flemon Anderson on Christmas Eve 1864 at a local historical talk given by Meredith Bean McMath. I began wondering what it would have been like for a community already so divided to heal in the aftermath of the Civil War. The third stanza especially inspired Wyatt’s character and usually makes me teary.
Click here to listen to Christmas is Comin’ Round Again on YouTube.
(Likely to be a short ad at the beginning.)