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IS 9:1-6

This is a repeat post from years past.

The Secret Sam was my favorite Christmas present as a child. I still have it, and I will keep it, or perhaps pass it on to a grandchild. Oh, how excited and hopeful I was the year I asked for my own Secret Sam. My mother told me it was a boy’s toy, but I was never a Barbie doll girl.

That was my spy year, my year of intrepid adventures around the neighborhood. It was one of my last Christmases as a child, I think, wanting toys and dreaming of adventures. Not too many years later, perhaps even the next one, my Christmas gifts would be stereos and albums, bell bottom jeans and paisley print turtlenecks.

Perhaps that is why the memory of it is such a treasure to me.

This year my grandchildren will be blessed with the breathless anticipation of what might be under the tree Christmas morning. They will be late to bed, too excited to sleep easily, and early to rise, rushing to the living room in all the excitement and wonder a child can have.  (more…)

At our family’s Christmas dinner, you will find a combination of old favorites and new recipes we are trying out for the first time. Some of our favorites come to us from generations long gone now, and have stood the test of time. But it seems each year the cooks in the family try out new things and we very much enjoy the additions. Sometimes we find one that’s a keeper and we will see it next year.

Pull out those tattered, faded favorites and share them with us, as well as the newly discovered dishes you want to try.

I am grateful especially at this time of year for the women who taught me to cook so long ago, my wonderful mother in law, as well as my husband’s paternal grandmother and aunt. I had no idea at the time that they were teaching me a skill that would nourish family and friends in ways other than eating.

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Advent is a season of preparation that has a twofold purpose. Advent begins with Evening Prayer I of the Sunday falling on or closest to 30 November and ends before evening prayer I of Christmas. We prepare ourselves not only for the coming joy of our celebration of the birth of the Christ child; we also prepare ourselves for the Second Coming of Christ.

For Catholics, Advent is the beginning of the new liturgical year. The seasons of that year have always led me on a journey with Christ each year, and I gain so much in the consistency of the seasons and readings. We begin with Advent, awaiting the birth of Christ, then celebrate the Christmas Octave and season, Epiphany, and then soon begins Lent, in preparation for Easter. Then, after the Easter season ends with Pentecost, we have the bulk of Ordinary Time until the end of the liturgical year, and Advent again.

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