The Christmas That Was and Still Is

Oh this week between Christmas and the new year. It's brutal. So disorienting. Does anyone even know what day it is? Number or name? My lesson learned and note to self: take this week off work in every year to come. 

Many I know have moved on from Christmas or are ready to. I grimace when I hear that trees are down or coming down and decor packed up for another eleven months. "The weather is so warm; a good time to get the lights down before they freeze into the ground or onto the house." Reasonable, but here in the northeast we haven't had a kickin' snowstorm yet!

What's the rush? Take it down for what?

I may or may not have said to my husband a few days ago, "I still have to make a popcorn garland for the tree!", to which I received an over the top of the glasses look and question, "still"? 

I kid. 

I think.

It's clear I'm not done or ready to move on. (I never am at this stage.) Too much went on in the month of December and it happened too quickly. (Always does.) Abrupt endings don't work for me. I must process and savor it with a journal and pen and thanksgiving, surrounded by pine trees, white lights and Christmas carols. Throw in some orange cranberry bread and candles lit, and you have one content girl. 

Technically, Christmas is still going you know. I saw a meme on Instagram last night that made me smile, hi five the air and shout Amen!

Keep Calm 

It's Still Christmas 

Until Epiphany

Yes it is. Happy 6th Day of Christmas to you this fine Saturday morning! We have six more days of celebrating to go. Oh that we actually celebrated all twelve starting on the 25th - maybe someday. A girl can dream.

One thing I love is an Advent devotional that lives on for a few days after Christmas. Enjoy this excerpt (dated 12/30) with me.

"One of the [strangest] things about our own topsy-turvy time is that we all hear such a vast amount about Christmas just before it comes, and suddenly hear nothing at all about it afterwards. Everybody writes about what a glorious Christmas we are going to have. Nobody, or next to nobody, ever writes about the Christmas we have just had. I am going to plead for a longer period to find out what was really meant by that Christmas; and a fuller consideration of what we have really found."*

Can I get an amen? And let's change that.

Maybe we could just take a minute or two and remember December and our Advent waiting and wondering. 

• What did we experience? 
• How did God show up? 
• What did we learn? 
• What should we write down to repeat next year? 
• What do we not want to forget to tell our littles for years to come? 
• Did we start a new tradition? 
• Do we need to write a thank you note? 
• Did we forget someone? Not too late to bring a gift, schedule a visit, send a card.

The girls at work asked me what I was going to do this weekend and I said, I need a whole day to myself. I plan to sit, to remember, to pray, to confess, to ask, to write, to think, to dream, to wonder, to listen, to wait, to plan. 

To wrap 2023 up in my journal and my heart and start 2024 with new goals (don't recoil from this awesome action word!) and rhythms to implement.

"It would behoove us to remember that an ending is also a new beginning, a chance to be born again. The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes. Reality, as designed by God, testifies to this truth: darkness precedes dawn. Sleep precedes wakefulness. Every morning His mercies are new, as the day is new, as we are new. The land endures the harshness of winter in order to be reborn in the vigor of spring. Everywhere we look, nature is rehearsing resurrection, preparing for the day when all things will be made new, when measurable time gives way to immeasurable eternity."**

You see why we need more days after Christmas Day? I needed that reminder this morning and tomorrow and the next. Maybe you did too? I pray for all that awareness in my life in the new year. 

Savor with me one more time before you say goodbye to Christmas 2023 and turn the calendar page to 2024 what this God of ours - so deserving of our honor - has done for us:

Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, 
but in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son,

whom He appointed the heir of all things, 
through whom also He created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God 
and the exact imprint of His nature,

and He upholds the universe by the word of His power. 
After making purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high..." 
Hebrews 1:1-3

you know it is a good verse
when it makes the pantry door

Father, as one year comes to a close and a new year is upon us, I'm looking for your help in controlling my emotions which can be all over the map this last week. Sometimes eager to put the current year with its pain and regrets in the rear-view mirror and move to the next with rose colored glasses; and other times quick to put the brakes on reminiscing with fondness the goodness of the past year, not in a hurry to move on quite yet. This verse reminds me that Jesus is the radiance of your glory, the exact imprint of your nature and He upholds the whole universe - past and future in His hands, making Him worthy of my trust. His kingdom will have no end, so I have nothing to worry about and nothing to fear in the year ahead. You make all things new. In this new year, put to death the things in me that need to die and make me new - able to receive your love in new ways and give it to others in new ways too. 

With eyes fixed on Jesus who looks exactly like You, I pray these things with a thankful grin.

Amen.

P.S. I know you keep untold volumes of snow (Job 38:22). Can we have some?

___________

*A Winter's Tale by G.K. Chesterton p.131

**same as above p.128

The Gift of December Darkness

These dark mornings, I love them so. Some can't deal with this December feature, but I weirdly look forward to it all year. I've found a kindred spirit in author, Barbara Mahany. She's written a book called "The Stillness of Winter" and I read it annually. It's not an Advent devotional, but she mentions this glorious season. Sometimes someone else puts your words on paper better than you ever could.

If I didn't have a job to go to each morning, I would call a friend and extend an invitation to come over for coffee and some cranberry orange bread (recipe found in this wonderful book) and read the following selection. I mean, I have to share it with someone it's so good. 

So, here it is for you. Enjoy.

"I am practicing Advent. Really practicing. Paying attention. Giving in to the season in ways that wash over me, seep into me, bring me back home to a place I may never have been.

Like a child this year, I have a just-opened sense of these days.

I am, for the very first time, not counting down. Not ticking off days and errands to run like a clock wound too tightly.

Instead, I am counting in a whole other way. I am counting, yes, but the thing that I'm doing is making count each one of the days. I am counting the days in a way that takes time. That takes it and holds it. Savors it. Sucks out the marrow of each blessed hour.

I am this year embracing the darkness. I am kindling lights. I am practicing quiet. I am shutting out noise and filling my house with the sounds of the season that call me.

 I am practicing no. No is the word that I' saying to much of the madness. No, I cannot go there. No, I cannot race from one end of town to the other. No, I will not.

I am practicing yes.

Yes, I will wake up early. Will tiptoe alone, and in quiet, to down in the kitchen, and out to the place where the moon shines. Where the early bird hasn't yet risen. But I have. I am alone with the dark and the calm, and I am standing there watching the shadows, the lace of the moon. I am listening for words that fill up my heart. It's a prayer and it comes to me, fills my lungs, as I breathe in cold air, the air of December, December's most blessed breath.

Yes, I am redressing my house. I am tucking pinecones and berries red, in places that not long ago were spilling with pumpkins, walnuts and acorns.

I am waking up to the notion that to usher the season into my house is to awaken the sacred. It is to shake off the dust of the days just before. To grope for the glimmer amid all the darkness.

December, more than most any month, can go one of two ways.

One trail is all tangled, all covered with bramble. You can get lost, what with all of the noise and all of the bright colored lights.

But December, if you choose, if you allow it, can be the trail through the woods that leads to the light, far off in the distance.

The darkness itself offers the gift. Each day, the darkness comes sooner, comes deeper, comes blacker than ink. It draws us in, into our homes, yes, but more so, into our souls.

It invites us: light a light. Wrap a blanket. Sit by the fire. Stare into the flames, and onto the last dying embers. Consider the coming of Christmas.

I am, in this month of preparing, in this month of a story told time and again, listening anew to the words. I am considering the story of the travelers, the Virgin with Child, the donkey, the man with the tools, the unlikely trio, knocking and knocking at door after door.

I am remembering how, long, long, ago, I winced when I heard how no one had room. Open the door, I would shout deep inside. Make room. Make a room.

I didn't know then I could change it. I could take hold of the story; make it be just as it should be.

But I do now. I know now.

I am taking hold of that story, the way that it's told this December. I am, in the dark and the quiet, making the room that I longed for. For the three in the story, yes, but even for me.

I am preparing a room at the inn. The inn, of course, is my heart."

Ah, this is Advent. See what I mean? So good. Makes you want to get up earlier now, doesn't it?