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.

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.)

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Advent

Actually, the world is beginning to look a lot like Christmas, but Advent is my story and I'm sticking to it.

That means I'll engage in a little Advent busy-ness Saturday, in order to start our preparations for Christmas.

The Advent wreath will come out:

The Jesse Tree will go up:

The Jesse Tree

Finding Jesus in the Old Testament

But a shoot shall sprout from

the stump of Jesse, and from his

roots a bud shall blossom.

The spirit of the Lord shall

rest upon him: a spirit of

wisdom and of understanding,

a spirit of counsel and of

strength, a spirit of knowledge

and of fear of the Lord.

~~ Isaiah 11:1-2

The Advent Calendars will appear. All kinds of Advent calendars. Lots of them:

Favorite Advent and Christmas picture books will gather in pagey clusters under the Jesse Tree. Because no one is ever too old for picture books.

Ramona's all-time favorite

~~~~~~~~~~

There's more, to be sure. More to do, more to blog about (and sometimes there will be more blogging about doing less. Less is more, when it comes to Advent.)

There's my No-Panic Advent series, which brings all of our ideas and traditions together in one frighteningly long post.

And there are other Advent link-ups to check out:

"Little Holy Days" will be hosted by Haley at Carrots for Michaelmas, along with Dualing Moms and
Molly Makes Do. Good stuff.

Bonnie Engstrom of A Knotted Life has a great video announcement here about her Advent series. (I'll be part of that one later in December.)

~~~~~~~~~~

So take a breath and remember -- Advent is not a marathon, not a competition, not an event, and not a reason to go crazy. It's preparation for the best birthday party of all time. Just think of the One you're preparing a party for -- you know what He'd say if you could sit down with Him and talk about the soiree:

"Don't go to a lot of trouble for Me. Don't wear yourself out and get stressed, okay? The only gift I really want is the gift of yourself. That's all. Pass the birthday cake. How did you know I wanted chocolate?"