{"id":947,"date":"2011-12-10T19:30:35","date_gmt":"2011-12-11T00:30:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/wholenotes\/?p=947"},"modified":"2011-12-10T19:49:14","modified_gmt":"2011-12-11T00:49:14","slug":"tobymac-shares-christmas-memories-brand-new-holiday-album","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/wholenotes\/2011\/12\/tobymac-shares-christmas-memories-brand-new-holiday-album.html","title":{"rendered":"Tobymac shares Christmas memories, brand new holiday album"},"content":{"rendered":"

Click “Like” to share this with your friends!<\/strong><\/p>\n

This Christmas, TobyMac has a present for his fans–a fresh holiday album appropriately titled Christmas in DiverseCity<\/em>. This collection of songs features not only the famed former dcTalk member but six tunes from members of his DiverseCity band including Nirva Ready, Mr. Talkbox, Maj, Gabe Real and drummer B. Haley’s group Superherose.<\/p>\n

In this conversation with Whole Notes, TobyMac shares some of his favorite Christmas memories and talks more about the new CD:<\/p>\n

Bonham: What\u2019s your favorite childhood Christmas memory?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>TobyMac: My favorite thing about Christmas as a child is something that at the time I hated and now when I look back it\u2019s my most cherished memory. We would wake up Christmas morning and look under the tree and see all the presents and just be ready to go and anxious to dive in and rip into those gifts. But we would have to wait until my dad got up. My dad would sleep in a little bit. Since I\u2019ve become a father, I\u2019ve taken that on myself (laughs). But we would wait and then we\u2019d have a big brunch in the kitchen. She always made these special foods that she only made on Christmas day. And then my dad would break out the gigantic family Bible and read the Christmas story from Luke. At the time, I was like, \u201cCome on! Let\u2019s get this done. Let\u2019s get to the gifts.\u201d But now that\u2019s the sweetest thing and I want to bring that to my family. It\u2019s something that you look back on and realize that it was his way of making sure we remembered that Christmas was about Christ.<\/p>\n

Bonham: Do you have a special Christmas tradition that you\u2019ve created with your wife and kids?<\/p>\n

TobyMac: We go to Jamaica. That\u2019s become our Christmas tradition. My wife Amanda is from Jamaica and her family is still there. It\u2019s part of what we do. Our family in Jamaica just loves the Lord and we have great time with them. They celebrate freely down there and at the same time they just love the Lord. It\u2019s beautiful. The main tradition we have there is this big Christmas dinner on Christmas night. Probably a hundred people show up from the family\u2014uncles, aunts, cousins\u2014and extended family. It\u2019s a blast. It\u2019s so fun.<\/p>\n

Bonham: What have you done to make sure your kids understand the significance and true meaning of Christmas?<\/p>\n

TobyMac: My kids are really clear on that, thank God. They know Santa Claus is there. They know that when they go to stores, (Christmas) is about Santa Claus and giving gifts. But we just know that this is about the birth of Jesus and His coming into the world to bring forgiveness and a relationship with Him. They look forward to the gifts, but they have an understanding of Christmas. That has a lot to do with the people we do life with, the school they go to, the church they go to, but yeah, (the Christmas message) is there. It\u2019s real. It\u2019s not forced. They naturally have an understanding of what Christmas is all about.<\/p>\n

Bonham: How much of the new Christmas album was your desire to share the talents of the people within your circle?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>TobyMac: That\u2019s exactly what it is. I\u2019ve never put out a Christmas CD. I had a couple of songs that came out right after I released the Momentum<\/em> CD. We recreated those songs and then I added four more brand new songs. It\u2019s almost like two EP\u2019s. I have my six songs and then I really wanted to introduce people to the different entities, different groups or different solo artists within the Diverse City band. It is that. I wanted to share this beautiful, somewhat uncovered talent that I get walk out with every day. People know about the folks I write songs with and they know about the people I share the stage with, but I wanted to pull away the curtain and show everyone why this thing works. Here\u2019s some of things you don\u2019t know that you need to know.<\/p>\n

Whole Notes will post the rest of this conversation with TobyMac in the near future. In the meantime, stay up on the latest news from the award-winning artist by visiting his official website HERE<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Click “Like” to share this with your friends! This Christmas, TobyMac has a present for his fans–a fresh holiday album appropriately titled Christmas in DiverseCity. This collection of songs features not only the famed former dcTalk member but six tunes from members of his DiverseCity band including Nirva Ready, Mr. Talkbox, Maj, Gabe Real and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":418,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,519,70,131,120],"tags":[753,233,564,565,566,8],"class_list":["post-947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christian-music","category-christmas-music","category-music-feature","category-new-music-release","category-qa","tag-christmas-music","tag-dctalk","tag-diverse-city","tag-jamaica","tag-santa-claus","tag-tobymac"],"yoast_head":"\nTobymac shares Christmas memories, brand new holiday album - Whole Notes<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, nofollow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Tobymac shares Christmas memories, brand new holiday album - Whole Notes\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Click “Like” to share this with your friends! 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Chad is currently working on five new books including Sooner Legacy, Husker Legacy and Lessons From Sooner Football (Cross Training) as well as The Faith of Stock Car Racing (Judson Press). When he's not writing, Chad lends his efforts to various independent television and film projects. He was the coordinating producer for Choosing Life (2010) and Life Happens (2011). Chad is currently serving as producer on a forthcoming documentary about Super Bowl champion Brian Kinchen. Chad and his wife Amy live in Broken Arrow, Okla., with sons Lance (September 2003), Cole (February 2008) and Quinn (February 2011).","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/wholenotes\/author\/cbonham"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/wholenotes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/wholenotes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/wholenotes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/wholenotes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/418"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/wholenotes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=947"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/wholenotes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/947\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":954,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/wholenotes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/947\/revisions\/954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/wholenotes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/wholenotes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/wholenotes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}