Angels

Just a few weeks ago, my middle child pulled out a book that had been in storage since last Christmas. Last year, he wasn't quite ready for it. It had a lot of words that required the art of sitting still for more than roughly 4 seconds at a time. Not his jive just yet.

This year he can, just occasionally, enjoy a good book. And as we read through it for the first time, his eyes got big. He pointed and asked questions. And every day he asks to read it again.

The book?

An Angel Just Like Me by Mary Hoffman

It's the story of a young black boy during Advent who wonders why all the angels he sees are blonde girls. Who wonders if it's possible that an angel could look any differently. Who goes looking in store after store to find an angel just like him.

Ultimately, he can't find one. And a family friend, an artist, comes to the rescue and makes him one. He opens it Christmas Day in wonder...and then asks if his artist friend can make more for all his other friends that wonder if there are angels just like them.

It's a beautiful story. My son's very favorite.

And when we get to the end, my son always points to the black boy angel and says "Just like Nate?"

Yes, buddy. He looks just like you.

Maybe the concept of angels not all being white is new to you. Maybe the concept that people in heaven will not be some weird pale ghostly representation of humans is surprising. But God makes it clear in the scriptures that he has made us all in his image. And that when we share that heavenly feast some day we will not actually look all that different from how we do now. Because how we look now is beautiful and purposeful and good.

My son has noticed his skin is brown from before he could really articulate it. He would point to black characters in books and then to his own skin. He would run to black men on the playground and yell "Daddy!" (Yes, that was painful for most involved.) He thinks he is handsome with his dark skin and black curls and brown eyes. And he's right. He's pretty dang handsome.

But a lot of what he sees around him, in stores, on billboards, in the toys at school or the nursery? A lot of those things are white. White people playing. White people speaking. White characters in books.

And because he has white parents and a brother, he sees a lot of white at home, too.

And friends, it's ok. White isn't bad. God made me this way. And my husband. And my firstborn.

But if white is all he ever sees, he can unconsciously believe it's better. That it's more desirable. That it's somehow more important.

And that is the last thing we want him to believe about us or himself.

So when we read a book like that? And he relates to the character?

Well, Mama starts combing the stores. Where can I find an angel just like him? And one that he can touch and hold (read, not breakable) and doesn't cost more than I can afford?

Well, almost nowhere, to be honest.

I had just put on my list for this week to get to a craft store, buy an angel and paint it black. Because I wanted him to have that angel he so desperately wanted. And when you can't find what you need, you make it, right?

This morning, I posted a picture on my facebook page of a Santa canvas that I had painted for him a year ago. Well, really, I painted it for all my boys. I don't want my white son to grow up in a white-washed world any more than I want that for my black sons or for me. Culture and differences are rich. I want us to bask in them around here.

I posted that Santa picture and shared a story about how much it meant to him to have a black santa in our house.

And just a few hours later, I was out walking my youngest. A neighbor of ours, one I am just getting to know, ran out of her house with a gift for us. She smiled, walked up to me and handed me a black angel. A black boy angel. That happened to look a LOT like my boys.

I was almost speechless. I assumed she had seen my post this morning and was so grateful.

But no. She had seen me coming down the street. She had owned this angel for years and she just knew, in that moment, that it was for my sons.

Ya'll.

I picked up my son from preschool, brought him home and handed him that angel.

Pure. Joy.

"It's me?? It's me!!! I'm an angel!"

Yes, baby. You are.

Digging Into the Wait

One year ago, I was in a very different place than I find myself today.

One year ago, I dreaded Advent. Experience had led me to believe it would be a painful season, a season that only heightened my feelings of loss and frustration.

One year ago, God surprised me.

Not only with an Advent experience that ended up being full of peace, an experience that taught me more about Him, that helped me take the focus off myself- but weeks into it's celebration when He had already shown up and worked some healing in my soul, we also got the call that changed our lives. Last advent, the Lord met me in powerful ways- both spiritually and tangibly- with the gifts of hope and the (almost) fulfillment of a dream that was to come to fruition just a few weeks into the new year.

This year, I have been eagerly anticipating this time. Remembering dark, quiet mornings, sipping coffee, pondering the stillness. Knowing that there will be mornings I don't quite get to enjoy it that same way this year, but for a pretty good reason. This year, I have a crazy one-year-old careening around the house, pulling ornaments off the tree. We can't put up our stockings or he'll pull them down. He won't understand a bit of what goes on for the next month, but he'll enjoy the sparkly lights, the crinkle of the wrapping paper, the Christmas boxes that will be so much more fun than the actual toys that come inside them. My older son, however, continues in that sweet spot of parenting. Old enough to enjoy, old enough to participate, to continue to learn and young enough to want all three of those things. To find magic in awaiting the Christ child, to anticipate our nightly readings with the Jesse tree. We don't do Santa or the Elf around here- and I'm pretty convinced his Christmas is just as magical, and certainly as or more meaningful, as any other kid's.

This year, though, I want to dig in in a fresh way. I want to blog my way through the experience. I want to see it from my son's eyes, to experience the Jesse Tree like he does, to do my morning Advent Experience and to continue to train my heart that grew up without much idea of liturgy what it means to really live Advent.

So, today I start. This morning I'll start the Advent Project online. Then I will head to church to worship with my community where hymns and choruses will be sung, where the first candle of Advent will be lit. Later this afternoon, I will head back to celebrate with 70 of those people and our children as we make our own, fresh advent wreaths and celebrate the beginning of the season with a meal together.

Let's go, Advent. Let's see what fresh joys and challenges await.

DIY Holiday Luminaries

I am not ashamed to admit that I love the Christmas season. I love the spiritual side of it - the advent readings, the carols, the Jesse Tree, the candlelight Christmas Eve Services. And I love the aesthetic side- the decorating, the twinkle lights, the smells of baking, the parties. All of it, really.

My son shares in my deep love for this. Each year on the day after Thanksgiving, we get down all the boxes, carefully take all our knickknacks down from around the house and replace them with holiday decorations, trim the tree, wrap the banisters and set up the advent wreath, manger scene and Jesse Tree. He has already asked me several times if we can just do it early.

Nope, I'm a stickler. Thanksgiving first, my boy.

In anticipation of that day, however, there is one area of my house I've never felt looked truly finished when decorated- our mantle. I had a little idea rolling around in my mind this fall involving mason jars, glitter, letters and candles and my son was completely on board with making a fun holiday project a few weeks in advance.He loved that it felt like decorating early and I loved that they would be ready for when that actual day comes.

So, without further ado, here is what we did.

Materials:

3 Large Mason Jars
3 Small Wooden Letters - we chose "J", "O" and "Y". You could obviously adjust and do a longer word with more mason jars.
Mod Podge
Foam Brush
Glitter - we used a white/silver snow-like glitter.
Ribbon
Votive Candles or Tea Lights
Paint or Spray paint- we chose royal blue
Beads

First, we covered the mason jar with a layer of mod podge using a foam brush. You don't have to wait for it to get tacky before moving on to the second step, like you do with some projects.

Second, we sprinkled glitter all over the jar.

Repeat steps 1 and 2 until all your jars are glittery.

Third, while the jars were drying, we spray-painted the letters with a royal blue. I also painted the jar tops but didn't end up liking the way they looked on the finished product. We chose spray paint because (a) we already had it in the house and (b) it dries quickly. I did also paint the tops of the jars but ended up not liking the way they looked.

Fourth, we cut some silver and white ribbon and tied it around the tops of the dried mason jars. We added a decorative silver bead at the top to cover where we tied it and left one piece hanging down the middle of the jar. Make sure it's long enough to glue to the back of a letter.

Fifth, once the letters were dry, we got out the hot glue gun and glued the piece of ribbon to the back of each letter. Hot glue dries so quickly you can just hold it there for about 30 seconds and then gently turn it around so it lays against the jar.

Sixth, we raided our candle stash and found three small votive candles and gently placed them inside.

We lit the candles, turned down the lights and were delighted with the results!

I think they'll spice up the mantle nicely.

The Christmas Creep

It's the night before Thanksgiving and I am pretty much done with my Christmas shopping. The last time I was in a store on Black Friday I was a sporting goods store employee dealing with harried, rude customers with a nasty turkey hangover fighting over the newest Columbia jacket. (You know you had one. You wore it every day to high school with jeans, hiking boots and a flannel shirt.)  I vowed as I left the mall that afternoon that I would never be responsible for subjecting any other human being to what I experienced that day. And I've kept my vow.

Here's the deal. I do my best to be done with Christmas shopping by November 1st. Sometimes that happens, sometimes life prevents it. Most years this has meant that I don't have to deal with the crowds or even the decorations and pop Christmas music being played over and over. And over. For the record, if you are sick of that music, think about the people who hear the corporate holiday cd played thousands of times over the course of the season. I'm surprised they don't all rebel and start throwing merchandise at the speakers (or us) by December 1st. Some of you might be thinking I'm crazy and why in the world wouldn't I want to shop to Justin Bieber's version of some previously sacred tune? The answer is simple: I want the Christmas season to actually be about Christmas. And the way America is going, that's getting harder and harder. The Christmas creep means that I've got to be finished shopping before Halloween to avoid the overblown Christmasland of the stores. Really, people?

I want to make something clear. I love Christmas. The reason I shop so early and am finished with that aspect of it is because I love Christmas so much that I actually want to be able to enjoy it. To remember what it's actually about. To not have December be my busiest, most stressful month of the year. To let my son see a mom who is just resting, soaking in the joy of the expectation of her Savior, rather than running from store to store frantically buying stuff, so busy that I even forget to do our advent calendar with him in the mornings. I want what he experiences in that final month before Christmas not to rile him up for what will be under the tree but to be a chance for him to continue to learn about this God who loved him enough to send his Son to earth in the form of a little baby- to really ponder that unbelievable, world-altering, life-changing good news. To cultivate in him at a young age the idea that Christmas isn't about Macy's or Santa or, to be blunt, him. I want the story of Christmas to saturate our household so much that when the day actually arrives the presents under the tree aren't the focus because it's not what we've been waiting for. Jesus is the focus because HE is what we've been waiting for. For the record, this is why we don't do Santa or Elf on the Shelf around here. I never want my son to think that Christmas morning is about him or that it's some kind of reflection of how well he has behaved this year. We give gifts because we give them. Not because he deserves them.

And I've decided that there is one kind of Christmas creep that I should be supporting. Advent is this beautiful time when we often get better about creating and implementing family traditions that point to our Savior. And why, for goodness sake, shouldn't that creep into the rest of my year? I should be creating these types of traditions for February and June and October, not just late November when we're setting up the advent calendar and manger scene and wondering, yet again, what this Jesse tree thing is. Sure, we talk about God around here, we say our prayers, we discuss what we learn in Sunday school and read the Jesus Storybook Bible to our son like everyone else our age seems to do, but what daily practices are we implementing into the life of our family to make sure that we are not just worshiping our own family life but that we are actually worshiping God?

This advent, with the shopping done and the decorations going up this coming weekend, I'm looking forward to peaceful mornings over coffee to ponder this question. How can the real Christmas creep into the rest of our year? How can I cultivate an atmosphere of joy and expectation of encountering the living God well after we take down the tree and turn off the Christmas lights?

And how, for the love of all that is good and holy, can I avoid hearing any more Justin Bieber music ever again? 

Boughs of Collies

We do a lot of singing around our house. And banging on pots, blowing into the recorder, strumming on guitars, tinkering on the piano...bottom line, it's a musical place to be. One of my favorite things about it is how often my son mistranslates the line of a song into something sweet, but not quite right.

Christmas brings a whole new genre of music to choose from in this area and at least once a day we're asked to participate in a sing-along. Tonight? "Can we sing "Boughs of Collies" please, Mommy?" For my husband, this immediately brings to mind a vision of festively decorated dogs standing in groups around the house. But, we plunge in, sing the song and move onto something else. Boy does my little man sing with gusto!

Of course, I think most of us can relate to having wrongly sung a line or two in our lives, and probably much later than as a three year old. I vividly remember the day I found out that Bush was NOT singing about a religious epiphany in their song "Come Down". I was not only convinced that the words were "I don't want to come back down from Islam," but I also sang them embarassingly loudly. Ahem, apparently it was "this cloud", not Islam. Oh well. I'm sure there were a few people who enjoyed a good laugh on the bus ride to school over it. Certainly my friends did when I finally figured it out, so it wasn't a total waste.

The thing I love is that when a song gets hold of you, it doesn't always matter if you get the words right and, as a three year old, I'm not sure he'd know what "boughs of holly" really are anyway. He sings it with abandon and without a care in the world as to what he sounds like or if he's "right." He's happily and unashamedly him. What a beautiful picture of living in freedom- just happy to be who God has made him to be and enjoying life each moment at a time. Another lesson straight from God through the mouth of a three-year-old to my soul.

So, as I continue to sing about "boughs of collies" and "drops of rain roses" in the coming days, I might just fish out my old Bush cd and sing along, wrong words and all. It was more fun the wrong way anyway!