Advent/Christmas, the entire season is really my favorite time of the year. I love autumn but I really love this time of year. I have wonderful memories of Christmas through the years. My mom would make Italian Christmas cookies, candy and lots of pasta. Christmas Eve we would go to midnight mass and then come home and open one present before going to bed, always new pajamas!
My mom would set out milk and Italian cookies (scallini), divinity fudge but not just for Santa, she would tell us that Jesus and the apostles would come and sit around the table as well. Imagine as a small child thinking, “Jesus and the apostles are sitting at our table tonight?” That was just as exciting to me as Santa coming.
Christmas morning my parents would always leave a “big’ gift unwrapped out for each of us, this was our gift from Santa. One year it was a bike, another a Chatty Kathy doll (I loved that doll?) another an Easy Bake Oven…
Christmas meant, peace, giving, receiving, good food, family, church, very fond memories.
Somehow over the years I have grown to love the entire season, beginning with Advent. Embracing not only celebrating that Jesus came as a baby over 2000 years ago, but living in hope that He will come again and when He does, everything, all sickness, death, violence, war, mental illness, addictions, poverty, everything will be put to right. This is how I celebrate the four weeks of Advent and the season of Christmas.
Each week we as we light the Advent candles we have reflected on each candle and asked the question, “how can I give and receive the gift of hope, peace, joy and now today, love?”
Today we had to cancel our worship gathering because of weather, we would have listened to folks from our community tell a story of how the light of Christ came into some part of their darkness this past year. Then we would have had a talk on how to“ receive” this Christmas. We would have sang carols together and closed in prayer.
Today, in order to practice waiting for Christ to come in all His forms into my life, I will light the Advent candles with my family, sit in stillness for 15 minutes and receive the love of God into my entire being and then we will sing some Christmas carols. This week I will try to be mindful of how the light of Christ comes into my life moment by moment. As I drive around town and see Christmas lights I will look at them in wonder and allow them to shine into my soul and use them as moments of prayer to ask God to shine his love into the hearts of those that are suffering and in pain.
I wish you a wonderful, blessed Advent/Christmas season.
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Random Thoughts on the Advent/Christmas Season
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