Journey to Christmas

By Journey to Christmas, I don't mean the long drive from Fayetteville, Arkansas back to home in Johnson City. Tennessee. That journey involved a detour around construction on I-40 and letting our student driver take the wheel at Bald Knob. Which turned out to be a bad idea because the new navigator(Terry, as I had moved to the back of the van to watch Scarecrow and Mrs. King on DVD) didn't know we were supposed to be on Hwy 64 instead of 67, and we ended up going to Memphis by way of Jonesboro. A flat tire in Nashville added a bit more adventure to our Christmas journey.

From Flat Tire

No, the Journey to Christmas of which I speak is the title of a DVD series that our family recently previewed for Tyndale House Publishers. This 4-part series follows five individuals who are given a trip to the Holy Land to help them discover the true meaning of Christmas. The five travelers include an agnostic, a person experiencing a crisis of faith, an artist looking for inspiration, a native American who wonders if Jesus can identify with her culture, and a "normal" enthusiastic believer (at least I hope that it's normal for believers to be enthusiastic about their faith).

The cinematography was wonderful, and it was interesting to see the five travelers bond through their journey. But, my family found the series to be quite boring. Each episode (except the first) started with a great deal of review and the action was very slow. I had hoped that watching this together would make a great family advent experience, but we were underwhelmed. I even fell asleep during one episode. I had hoped at least to see some dramatic life-change occur with the travelers, but they didn't seem all that different.

I received a complimentary copy of this DVD series from Tyndale House Publishers and was not required to post a positive review.