We mark each Lord’s Day in Advent very simply. We celebrate as a family at our weekly Sabbath feast on Saturday night, so that is the obvious time for us to do something special for Advent. Heather bought me a little Advent wreath candle holder a few years ago, and it holds four candles, one for each Sunday in Advent. So, at the beginning of our meal together, I light the Advent candles. Each week I light them, starting with the candle from week one and moving on. Then, in the center, we have the Christmas candle which we’ll light on Christmas morning. Doug has prepared Advent questions for the grandkids, which they answer each week, and then we sing the first verse of “O Come O Come Emmanuel.”
Though so far I have managed to get the kids Christmas pj’s each year, it’s not as easy as it used to be. With a the size spread from 8 months to 12 years now, they don’t always match exactly. But I remember how exciting new pj’s were when I was little, so I do the “grandma thing” and give them all new jammers. But bear in mind all you Continue reading ‘Nothing Too Fancy’
I told you Blaire didn’t like finger painting, but I believe a better way to describe the situation would be that she does not like fingering, but not eating paint. However, one mad baby later, we had this enormous piece of family Christmas art. I love how terribly homely it is! We used two colors of green fabric paint, a big piece of canvas, and some sweet vintage Christmas bias tape that my mother-in-law found somewhere. Felt stickers label our handprints, and while I was originally planning to do a star or some ornaments, I feel that this may just be as busy as it ought to be! It hangs at the end of our hall, here pictured by Blaire’s basket of toys. But that is not where we keep the toys – we keep those all over the living room floor, and sometimes in the kitchen. A few in the laundry room for good measure, some under the couch, and also stuffed into purses and beds hither and yon.
In The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe Lewis describes the delightful approach of Father Christmas and his giving of gifts to the children while they are on the run from the White Witch. A few pages later the White Witch comes upon “a merry party, a squirrel and his wife with their children and two satyrs and a dwarf and an old dog-fox, all on stools round a table” eating “something like a plum pudding.” The White Witch asks, “What is the meaning of this?…..What is the meaning of all this gluttony, this waste, this self-indulgence? Where did you get these things?”
And so it is still the case that when God’s people are rejoicing in His gifts, the other team wants to call it wasteful, gluttonous, and selfish. The enemies of God hate to see His people delighting in and celebrating His Great Advent. Why should our celebrating with our gifts and lights and candles and songs (and cookies and fudge) still annoy the White Witch and her minions? Because without Christ, there is no reason to celebrate, and there is a deep longing in the heart of sinful man to justify his own emptiness by means of envy and greed. And greed and envy hate to see others enjoying themselves.
So, as my husband pointed out in an exhortation a couple of weeks ago, when you hear people complaining about how much money we waste on celebrating Christmas, remember the White Witch. It is not Aslan speaking through her.
I’ve got a lot of help around here when it comes to Christmas gifts. I ask them, and the ideas flow! Today I actually wrote some of these down because I didn’t want to forget them. Here it is: the ultimate gift shopping list as assembled for me, by Chloe.
For Chloe: A Flower. And some Grass
For Daphne: A Chicken. She likes chickens
For Titus: A bowl
For Lina: Some water for the ducks
For Blaire: A toy
An idea which was later contributed by Daphne for them all was “something to match our toothbrushes.” It looks to be a pretty good Christmas around here!
Here is a wonderful post from my husband on Advent. And here is a whole series of readings for the Advent Season composed by various ministers in the CREC and compiled by our friend Randy Booth.
And here is a picture of the Christmas jammies I’ll be handing out a little later this evening to fifteen grandchildren! Babies on top, next the five boys, and finally the stack of ten girls’ jammies!
Mysterious doings are afoot amongst the cousin clan. No one knows who it could possibly have been, but someone left top secret letters in all the cousins’ lockers on the last day of school before Thanksgiving break. Each cousin received a manila envelope marked “Top Secret” which contained a very unusual missive. Two of the cousins who are too small to have a locker had them turn up in their backpacks, and the very small cousins had them show up in mailboxes. (By way of background, it should be noted that the Wilson cousins will all be in Santa Cruz for Thanksgiving, the Janks cousins will be in Seattle, and the Merkles will be in Boise.)
Interesting, don’t you think? Perhaps it’s the CIA. Continue reading ‘The Great Advent Mystery’
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