We have been blessed with four babies in our family--though they're certainly not babies anymore! It was during the times when they actually were babies that I learned to appreciate their dad the most. He was so patient with them and with me, spending as many hours up with them at night as I did... probably more. I was thankful for the help, and even more thankful for his obvious love for them. How grateful Mary must have been for the support and care of her husband Joseph, who was called on to act as the earthly father of the Savior, and to love the Child as his own. That thought prompted the lyrics of this simple song one day as I was Christmas shopping and listening to Pachelbel's "Canon in D" on the store's muzak system. The first two lines of harmonic pattern and melody are loosely based on that canon, and the tenor/bass duet accompaniment and obbligato borrow from it.