Christmas Rush Got You Down? Try This One Neat (Ancient) Fix!
According to pop-culture lore when Lucy Van Pelt told Charlie Brown, in “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” to “get the biggest aluminum tree you can find, Charlie Brown, maybe painted pink!” she wrecked the...
View ArticleKeeping Christmas in Christianity: A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols
In the typical “Battle for Christmas” banter, we hear a lot about keeping Christ in Christmas, and preserving Christmas as a Christian “holy day.” Jesus is the reason for the season, and all that. But...
View ArticleAdvent Purists Sound Like The Grinch
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. But shhh! Don’t mention it. You’ll upset the Advent Purists. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, spend a little time on my Facebook page. It’s...
View ArticleTen Ways For Busy Families To Celebrate Advent
It’s hard to miss all the Christmas items filling the shelves in stores, reminding us that Christmas is rapidly approaching. While this is true, and Christmas will be here soon, it isn’t Christmas yet....
View Article4 Ways To Reduce Stress And Materialism This Christmas
Try as we may, Christmas can feel overscheduled and materialistic instead of significant and joyful. Here’s a few ways I’m going to try to make Christmas a little more meaningful for my family this...
View ArticleLet’s Bring Back The 12 Days Of Christmas
A friend on Facebook wrote that she and her husband were taking a walk the night after Christmas Day. They passed a neighbor out in his yard and wished him a merry Christmas. The neighbor paused and...
View ArticleThe Just Do It Guide To Holiday (Or Everyday) Hosting
I love Martha Stewart. I love her magazine and its lavish photo spreads of meticulously planned dinner parties. I tried such parties before we had kids. My family still teases me about the timeline I...
View ArticleNobody Is Actually Upset About The Starbucks Cup. Stop Saying Otherwise
The War on Christmas starts earlier and earlier each year, doesn’t it! Here we are, just a few days into November, and already we’re battling over who is the least offended by Starbucks’ supposedly...
View Article10 Simple Ways To Celebrate Advent
This Sunday begins the season of Advent for western Christian churches. While it might be tempting to go from Thanksgiving straight to Christmas preparations, this skips an important season in the...
View Article7 Ways To Simplify Your Christmas
Here we go again. If you’re anything like me, your Facebook feed is crawling with reminders that there are only [insert ridiculously low number here] more shopping days until Christmas. Your television...
View ArticleCelebrate New Year’s With Christmas In Mind
Why the rush to say “good riddance” to Christmas? Each of us knows at least one self-styled Grinch who has an easy answer. You know the type—the friend or relative who takes countercultural pride in...
View ArticleOur Family Stays Sane For Christmas With This Advent Plan
This is what my husband calls my November, December, January regimen of using Advent to prep for almost two weeks of celebration: Anglican Advent absolutism. I devised our Advent to Christmas plan...
View Article5 Easy Ways To Observe Advent So You Can Enjoy The Christmas Season
Christmas music is back on the radio and stores have their aisles full of presents and brightly lit trees. It’s not Christmas yet, though: it’s Advent. Far more than just a pre-Christmas warm up, this...
View Article16 Lovely Songs You’ll Want On Your Advent Playlist
Anyone who has ever planned a vacation or special event knows that sometimes the excitement of anticipation can rival the thing being anticipated. The season of Advent is all about anticipating the...
View ArticleWinter Is Coming: Advent Brings The Light When Darkness Grows
Musings inspired by E.E. Cummings’s poem ‘The Glory Is Fallen Out Of’ and Samuel Barber’s work for a-cappella choir, Twelfth Night. In honor of David Bentley Hart. “the glory is fallen out of / the sky...
View ArticleWhy Santa Claus Without Jesus Is Cultural Appropriation At Its Stupidest
Santa Claus is more than a mythical figure, living in the North Pole with reindeer and happy industrious elves. The commercialization of Christmas, exacerbated by things like the obnoxious Elf on the...
View Article7 Ways To Put Jesus Back Into Christmas This Year
It’s the time of year when there is no shortage of advice on how to get the most out of your Christmas. Whether you are planning a celebration worthy of Good Housekeeping, or so exhausted that you are...
View ArticleThis Christmas, Let’s Take A Break From Social Media
As a little girl, every Christmas season meant curling up next to the Christmas tree with a good book. I read “Aesop’s Fables,” “The Tasha Tudor Book of Fairy Tales,” and, later on, Agatha Christie...
View ArticleThe Winter Solstice Reminds Us That Darkness Can Be A Gift
Today is the winter solstice. Over all the north, tonight will be the darkest evening of the year. The darkness of winter brings cold, an absence of light sensed not with the eyes or even with skin...
View Article24 Quality Christmas Books To Read Instead Of All The Smarmy Garbage
Most Christmas picture books are dumb. A few are awesome. Both of these facts are more important than you might think, because vapid books don’t just sucker doting parents and grandparents out of a few...
View Article
