Nashville, TN (September 17, 2018)
Multi award-winning artist and songwriter Matt Maher will release his holiday album, The Advent of Christmas (Essential Records/Provident Label Group) on October 19. A children’s book of the same name will also release the same day with Wellspring Publishing, a division of Beacon Publishing.

The Advent of Christmas is Maher’s first holiday album in his ten-year recording career. With this 13-song collection, encompassing both originals and traditional favorites, it is his hope that they will help the listener prepare for and better appreciate the four weeks of Advent leading up to Christmas day.

“From the very beginning and through the history of Christianity, the season of Advent has been a way of remembering (more fully) the mystery of God becoming human,” Maher shares. “Long before the Macy’s Day Parade, red Starbucks cups and The Elf on a Shelf, Christians marked the passage of time in the four weeks before Christmas by remembering and embracing the sense of anticipation around the arrival of the promised Messiah; to prepare for the coming of Jesus. When you have relatives and friends coming for the holidays, you try to take time to get ready. The whole point is to prepare. I wanted to have a collection of songs – some that are familiar and many that are new – that prepare us for the four weeks of Advent and how each week is devoted to the concepts of hope, peace, joy and love.”

The Advent of Christmas book:
Maher will also release his first children’s book, The Advent of Christmas, on October 19. The picture book, targeted for children and their families, shares of the spiritual meaning of Advent and teaches the meaning of each advent candle. The book also explores much more than presents and Santa; children will learn the story of the birth of Jesus and why Christmas truly is ‘the most wonderful time of the year.’

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