Many years ago, the wife of a poor man died leaving him with five children, ranging from age six to fifteen. The older children assumed many of the household chores – cooking, cleaning, and helping the younger children.

When the man came home at night, he always brought a bag of groceries, food for the next day. After he set the bag on the table, he hugged each child.

Before they ate, he read from the Scriptures, and they prayed, Many nights before bed, the children begged their father to sing with them. He frequently played his guitar and sang folk tunes.

The first Christmas after his wife died the man said to his children, “This year there is not enough money to buy presents from the store. Instead, we’ll all draw names, and you will make a present for one of your brothers or sisters. My gift to you will be a fine Christmas meal and a special song I am writing. We will learn it in the weeks before Christmas and sing it in church onChristmas Eve.”

True to his word, the father wrote a wonderful song of joy for the children, and began to teach it to them three weeks before the night of the Christmas service. The children loved the song so much they sang it with great gusto and volume.

Another man, who lived above the family, hated Christmas and hated music even more. Night after night he listened to the children sing the new Christmas song. It irritated him so much that he developed a plan to silence the singing. Several days before Christmas he knocked on the door. “I have come to make you an offer.” He said to the father, who listened carefully with his children standing behind him. “I will give you $300 if you promise not to sing for three months.”

The father looked at the children. “That is more money than I can make in a week,” he cried. “We will be able to buy presents for everyone in the entire family.” The children cheered as the father accepted the money, and the man’s terms.

That night they began to plan silently how they would spend the money. The next evening, after they ate, they sat quietly, reading and thinking. On the fourth night, one of the younger children said, “I’d rather have music than any present. This isn’t worth it.”

One by one, the children agreed. So, the father walked into the bedroom, retrieved the money, and walked up the flight of stairs to return the money to its owner. “We have discovered that there is something more important than money,” he said. “I am sorry that our singing irritates you, but it fills us with joy. Our family can’t imagine Christmas, or life itself, without music. When we sing, we celebrate the best news that has ever been given, that God so loved the world that he became one of us, living as a human being.”

When the father rejoined his children he said, “We will learn to sing with greater feeling and less volume. In our joy we don’t want to irritate our neighbor. What do you say to that?”

The oldest child spoke for them all, “We say: ‘let the music begin.’”