The wonder of it all

The older I get, the more precious the Christmas story becomes. It's probably a combination of many things--spiritual maturity, myself being a mother, and the ability to watch the miracle of Christmas unfold before my very eyes in the life of my children.

We decided this year to do an advent wreath with our children. I was raised doing the advent candle (or at least, attempting to get it done!), but we had not done anything like that with our children in previous Christmases. In case you aren't familiar with advent, it's a way of observing the period before Christmas. Advent literally means "coming." The 4 Sundays before Christmas each are represented by a different candle; there are three purple candles and one pink candle. Each candle represents something--peace, hope, joy, and love. In the middle of the advent wreath is a white candle, which signifies Christ.

It was an amazing time for our family. We didn't light the candle and read Scripture every night, but we did most nights. The Christmas became so incredibly focused on the birth of Christ and what His birth meant for us that (and I'm not making this up) we did not have one time where a child asked when we would be able to open presents, nor give us their lists of wants (although, if you asked them what they wanted, they were more than willing to give us some ideas). I know that as the girls get older, that is likely to change, but we so enjoyed it this year!

It was such a breath of fresh air from other years to literally take a deep breath and push away the busyness! Luke and I had about 90% of our Christmas shopping done in October, so we didn't have the fight the crowds to buy a last-minute present. Instead, we were able to bake cookies with our girls, make a gingerbread house, read lots of stories, and enjoy time together as a family.

So, a belated Merry Christmas to everyone! My prayer is that all the Hope that the birth of Christ will be very real to everyone.