For the last few years, my Christmas ends with sitting quietly by myself in front of the television with either a cup of tea or a cream liqueur and watch the Call The Midwife Christmas special.

I do not watch television (generally watching things years after they’ve come out on Netflix while working out in the mornings), but when I do it’s both the news or Call the Midwife. It’s the only show that I am actually current on because I adore it as much as I do. Finishing last night’s episode with my RumChata, I realized why I love this sentimental, period piece which usually makes me cry at least once an episode– I can also watch the same episode multiple times and cry every time. It’s because it uses powerful storytelling. Which is the same as country music, which I grew up on and love to this day. And why I love books. The power of storytelling.

In this scene from the Christmas special, Lucille (a librarian from Jamaica turned English midwife) is about to marry Cyril, a mechanic who bonded over their shared roots and church during the first snowfall of the season the night before their wedding. The story arc has been seasons in the making once she came to Nonnatus House to live among the nuns and midwives who serve Poplar in London. Each episode tells a story which begins and ends with the voiceover of Vanessa Redgrave as the original Nurse Lee who wrote the original journals of her work as a midwife which the BBC has expanded to ten seasons and watchers are now in 1966. Not only is every episode a story, but each season and as a whole, ten seasons.

Simply put, I love a good story which is why Call the Midwife speaks to me. I am every bit as sentimental when I watch this show because I marvel at how it tugs at the heartstrings and makes you believe in all that is good. If you don’t believe me, I dare you to watch just one episode– any one of them.