We saw Les Miserables yesterday, and...

...um, yeah, I pretty much love this woman for summing things up:



More to come soon -- busy with family just now!

On the Fourth Sunday of Advent, My Daughters Said To Me

"Mom, have you written your Christmas fan fiction yet?"

Every year, since 2008, Anne-with-an-e has issued her annual Christmas Fan Fic Challenge. We all write stories, using Harry Potter characters, and then read them to each other over Christmas Eve dinner. (Past thoughts here.)

As of this morning, I had not written a word, but as of about an hour ago, I'm ready for the Christmas Eve unveiling of the stories.

How was your fourth Sunday of Advent?

Advent at A Knotted Life

Have you been following Bonnie Engstrom's Advent series at A Knotted Life?

I'm there today.

Lots of great stuff, ideas, reflections from a lot of thoughtful, funny, intriguing bloggers . So, go! Get over there! What are you waiting for?

In the Third Week of Advent My Daughters Said to Me

"Thanks, Mom, for the early Christmas present -- Beauty and the Beast was amazing!"

We had such fun and it was Ramona's first time to see a touring Broadway show. Her review?

She said, "It was supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. But who can spell that? So I'll just say it was fantastical."

Happy Feast of St. Lucy!

This was our Lucia Bread just a little while ago:

But we put a respectable dent in it. It doesn't look as pretty now, but it's serving the purpose for which it was created.

Happy St. Lucia day!

Sydney and Advent and Unconditional Love

Look at this face:

This is a face that says, "I love you. More than walks! More than rides in the car. More than rawhide bones! More than sniffing every disgusting, stinky spot of grass in the park, and you know how much I love that. More than belly rubs. I love you so much that if you, in that A.D.D. way you have, jump up from your desk five times in ten minutes to go tend to suddenly-remembered things, I, too, will jump up, and I will follow you! No matter how much I looked like I was enjoying a snooze. I will wait for your command; I will take any job you give me; I will threaten to kill the UPS man for you! Because I love you. No matter what you do."

I wish I could love like that.

Sometimes when the dog who owns that beautiful face irritates me, I find myself thinking, "Well, I like the dog most of the time, but I don't really love her when she throws up," or, "I don't really love her when she insists on going outside three times in half an hour. And I don't love her when she smells like that ...."

I wish I could look at everyone, and every important thing in my life, and God, with the same devotion that Sydney displays in that picture up there. Instead, I often find myself reacting to the world much more in the manner of a cat. Oh, yes, to be sure, there's kitty-happy-hour in my life -- you know, that frantic racing around the house just for the sheer and utter joy of it? But then there's also that gazing with contempt at things that get in my way. That attitude of indecision that is so cat-like: "Shall I accept you into my personal bubble? Or should I bite you on the face?" Then there's the whole love of sleep thing.

And though my cat has been known to curl up next to me, purring, in the middle of the night when I'm having trouble sleeping, it's always really more for his sake than for mine. When he's done with me, he's done. He's outta there. It's always on his terms.

In this season of waiting, this Advent, this time of reflection and resolutions, I'm thinking about being more like a dog -- accepting everything that comes my way with a goofily happy resignation. Frantic, anticipatory joy. Stupid gratitude.

I know I won't get there this Advent. I probably won't make it in this lifetime. But it's worth shooting for the attitude of utter love I see in that picture, don't you think?

I will not, however, threaten any bodily harm to a UPS man. Ever. Love the UPS man. So back off the man in brown, Sydney.

Advent on the Radio

I'll be on Morning Air with Sean Herriott at about 8 a.m. central time this morning. And since we'll be talking about Advent, I thought I'd round up a few posts.

The No-Panic series is right over there in the sidebar. ----->

Other Advent posts from the past:

2010
2011
So far this year 

And a post from the archives about Advent resolutions:

I love Advent. Liturgically, it's the beginning of a new year, full of possibility. Now is the time for new year resolutions.

Advent ~~ pregnant with hope and promise, anticipation, and with the fear and trembling of working out our salvation while God is at work in us ~~ is precisely the right time to assess our  spiritual lives. 

The liturgical calendar is a wise and gentle gift. 

"Time falls like manna at the corners of the wintry earth," Fr. Merton says.

Time.
Time to slow down.
Time to savor what's been given us. Gifts. Crosses.
Time to pray about what is to come.
Time to pray about the way He came to us as a baby, the way He will come again in glory.
Time.

When we mentally connect "Time" and "Advent" we so often think, "There's not enough! There's no time! There's never enough time!"

Oh, but there is. Stop. Listen. Be still for awhile.

Advent by Thomas Merton

Charm with your stainlessness these winter nights, 
Skies, and be perfect! Fly, vivider in the fiery dark, you quiet meteors, 
And disappear. 
You moon, be slow to go down, 
This is your full!

The four white roads make off in silence 
Towards the four parts of the starry universe. 
Time falls like manna at the corners of the wintry earth. 
We have become more humble than the rocks, 
More wakeful than the patient hills.

(Read the whole poem here.)

On the Second Sunday of Advent My Daughters Said to Me...

Anne-with-an-e: Hmmm?

Me: I said it's time to get up.

Anne: What?

Me: Time to get up. Get ready for Mass. Are you awake?

Anne: No.

Me: Are you awake enough to get up and eat?

Anne: No.

Me: What should I do about that?

Anne: Leave me alone.

~~~~~

Anne is not a morning person. Happy Second Sunday of Advent.

(Anne is, however, a good sport, and I'm sure she won't mind that I'm exploiting her night owl nature for the sake of a blog post.)

~~~~~

In other Advent news, the gingerbread house extravaganza had to be postponed due to illness at the home of the hostess. We hope to return to our regularly scheduled gingerbread griping soon.

~~~~~

St. Nicholas visited our house on the eve of his feast day. He left chocolate galore, and really cute socks, and a new Christmas ornament for everyone. Ramona's ornament was somehow broken during the night. I apologized profusely for St. Nicholas's clumsiness. I really have no idea how it could have happened, because you'd think he'd be pretty steady on his feet, with those big, black boots and all, not to mention being the kind of person who is mindful of breakables. But it turned out that St. Nick wasn't the only clumsy one. The next day I was showing Atticus the tiny broken part of Ramona's ornament and I dropped the ornament on the wood floor. Now it has a big, gaping broken part.

I promised Ramona that I'd replace her new ornament. I'm thinking something in a nice plastic or fabric?

~~~~~

Books I still adore reading at this time of year:

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever 
The Twenty-Four Days Before Christmas 
The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey
Hanna's Christmas 

Oh, who am I kidding? All of them.

~~~~~

Feast days coming up this week:

Our Lady of Guadalupe and St. Lucia. 

The bread! The bread! You can do it.

I'm not much of a photographer but every year I sigh at this picture of our bread.

Poetry Friday: Willa Cather, for Fr. Scott

Today is Willa Cather's birthday, which might have completely escaped my attention if not for a Facebook note from a priest in Rome.

Fr. Scott and Garrison Keillor were on the same page, though, and here's the poem for today on The Writer's Almanac:


L'Envoi
by Willa Cather

Where are the loves that we have loved before
When once we are alone, and shut the door ?
No matter whose the arms that held me fast,
The arms of Darkness hold me at the last.
No matter down what primrose path I tend,
I kiss the lips of Silence in the end.
No matter on what heart I found delight,
I come again unto the breast of Night.
No matter when or how love did befall,
'Tis Loneliness that loves me best of all,
And in the end she claims me, and I know
That she will stay, though all the rest may go.
No matter whose the eyes that I would keep
Near in the dark, 'tis in the eyes of Sleep
That I must look and look forever more,
When once I am alone, and shut the door.

~~~~~

Another Cather link: 

The Willa Cather Archive

~~~~~

Fr. Scott, we miss you! Come home and talk literature with us. 

~~~~~

Robyn Hood Black has the roundup today. 

I Should Have an Entire Category Devoted to Gingerbread Houses. But Do I? No.

(I'll take care of that later.)

Ever since we started doing this in 2009, when my friend Johnna and I thought it would be fun (fun! We thought it would be fun!) to make homemade gingerbread for the houses, I have posted about this change in our lifestyle. Because homemade gingerbread houses aren't just an annual trial, holiday project, they are a way of being.

Yes, this has been an evolution:

2009 introduced me to an aching gingerbread back. But the results were worth it.

2010 saw me procrastinating and cursing promising myself to plan a bit better in the future.

2011 saw me getting it all figured out. Cookie cutters -- check. Parchment paper -- check. Gingerbread recipe that we all love -- check. Making only two houses because Ramona said she'd do a graham cracker one instead -- check. Wait, strike that. She did say she'd do a graham cracker one, but then asked so sweetly if she could also have a full-sized gingerbread house. So that was the year Ramona decorated her Ditto house in graham cracker (Thank you, Sarah, who lives in the real Ditto House!) and also made a gingerbread church.

This year, it's all coming together -- the scheduling, the recipe, the tools, the timing. Here's where we are:

Make enough dough for houses for everyone: Check.

Make enough dough for all accoutrements (i.e., gingerbread men, reindeer, candy canes, etc.) Put a note on said accoutrements, forbidding their consumption until after construction day: Check.

Take ibuprofen for back: Check.

Promise readers to share the final results and promise readers and children everywhere that I will keep last year's promise not to complain: Pretty-much-check.

Stay tuned.

On the First Day of Advent My Daughters Said to Me ...

"It's time to start listening to the Christmas playlist!"

Wh-wh-what?! I sputtered. I glared. I said, "You guys! You should wait until Christmas to listen to Christmas music!"

~~~~~~~~~~

I have a confession to make. Atticus corrupted my family's Adventian ways in the music department.

Yesterday we began decorating the house for Advent. Anne-with-an-e mentioned that she had just put a bunch of Christmas music on her mp3. Betsy chimed, "It's December 1st! The day I start listening to Christmas music!"

I sensibly retorted, "But it's only Advent! You should save it. Remember when I never used to let any of you listen to any Christmas music until Christmas day?"

"Yeah," said Betsy, "but then Dad would take us with him to go grocery shopping and he always put Christmas music on in the van. I wanted to go grocery shopping just so I could listen to Christmas music."

We don't keep Advent perfectly, people. But I promise not to panic about it. And Christ is all about forgiveness, so I forgive you, Atticus.

(Photo thanks to Stock.Xchng.)

Donna-Marie is Rooted in Love

Donna-Marie Cooper O'Boyle has a beautiful new book, Rooted in Love: Our Calling as Catholic Women, that explores what it means to be a woman striving to be a reflection of Christ everyday, in all things.

In the course of her exploration, Donna-Marie shares a number of personal stories (her own, and those of others), some of them extraordinarily painful. Through these often startling and dramatic anecdotes, she demonstrates that no matter how difficult life becomes, we can turn to Christ and find comfort and healing, growing closer to Him in the midst of suffering.

And Donna pinpoints the ways in which we women can be much harder on ourselves than we need to be.  An excerpt:

I think that we women can become our own worst enemy by worrying that we're not doing enough to please others and God, too. We actually heap more responsibilities (whether they be actual or emotional) than is necessary upon our own shoulders. We deal with so many demands for perfection in our lives. Many of the saints spoke about how a whole lot of us might never do very big things in life (or what some might consider "big" things.) But we can lead simple yet faithful lives by doing small things with great love. This is very pleasing to God and is actually the secret to real holiness as both St. Therese of Lisieux and Blessed Teresa of Calcutta preached. And, yes, God calls all of us to become saints.

Perhaps the irony is that, as many women struglle with the demands of our society and the mass media to become "perfect," achieving perfection is simply being faithful to the duties of our lives. God looks at perfection much differently than do we.

Abandonment, loneliness and loss, health problems, crime, and numerous other sufferings -- such painful situations and heartaches can eventually become avenues of grace. Donna knows that. She has faced her own personal hardships and isn't afraid to share them in the hope that her experiences can inspire and encourage other women. Donna-Marie strives to be a whole-hearted disciple of Christ, and she wants the same for every single one of us.

For more information, and to visit other stops on Donna's blog tour, check out her Rooted in Love blog.