Christmas is a time for peace on earth, a time for favorite carols, family dinners, and familiar traditions. It's about a beautiful story of a lovely babe in the manger. Or is it?

A Not-So-Silent Night uncovers the dark side of Christmas, a side that exposes pain, humiliation, fear, and danger. Though we usually choose to ignore them, these elements--in their cultural and historical context--reveal the true meaning of Christmas where the shadow of the cross is inseparable from the manger. Author Verlyn D. Verbrugge maintains that until we see the dark side of Christmas, until we shed tears with Mary and Joseph, until we experience the fear that war is on the horizon, we will never truly understand the awesomeness of what happened in that little town of Bethlehem.

Timely and provocative, A Not-So-Silent Night steers us past holiday commercialization and drives us to the real reason for the season.