Saturday, December 3, 2011

Advent is here!!!!

I am so excited to celebrate Advent this Christmas season! The last holiday overseas was so different compared to this one. There we didn't have Christmas paraphernalia blasted at us from every corner. We had to make Christmas special for ourselves by decorating our homes and making Christmas traditions and memories together. Here in America, you can't miss it... it's everywhere. Holiday drinks at coffee shops, Christmas music playing on the radio, crafts and decorations spilling out of the isles at Wal-Mart, and of course the holiday shopping crowd!

Just like Thanksgiving was ultra special for me this year, Christmas will be the same.

I tear up at every Christmas song on the radio. I force myself not to order a holiday drink from every single coffee shop I pass. I want to buy a million manger scenes. I am dying to make Christmas cards. And of course, I am anticipating every day to celebrate Advent with my princess! It's so easy to focus on the presents and the lights and the cookies... but Advent helps me to center on Father every single night of December and go through the nativity story with her over and over. We talk about different aspects of that special night over 2,000 years ago... the angles, the shepherds, Mary and Joseph, the wise men, the star, and how everyone must have felt as these events were coming together.

As a pregnant mother, I am overwhelmed with emotion thinking of how Mary must have felt. She didn't know where they would stay when they reached Bethlehem, she didn't know how her birth was going to go, she didn't have a doctor or a nurse to aid her in the process. She didn't have an easy journey or a comfortable room to look forward to once they arrived. She didn't even have a clean crib to place the Newborn King.

He came down from His heavenly throne and was laid in a manger in our earthy home

Thank you Father.



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