Chantel 3 Minute Read I think I want to redefine my approach to gift shopping this year and in the years to come. I want to get farther away from the buying and giving just because everyone buys and gives. I want to buy less useless clutter — things that will never be used — and spend our money…
Trina Holden 3 Minute Read We’re celebrating Thanksgiving in Alabama. Even though we live in upstate New York. We will celebrate Christmas in New York, but without Grandma and Grandpa. They’ll be in Alabama. See, my husband’s family is managing two businesses right now — one in Alabama, one in New York. Someone needs to be present in both places,…
Chantel 3 Minute Read 1. Make a Thankful Tree Collect colorful fall leaves and press them in books during the first weeks of Autumn. Find a bare branch, or use a little potted tree and declare it your “Thankful Tree.” Every day during the month of November, write something small that you are thankful for on a leaf. Hang…
Trina Holden 3 Minute Read I adore new year’s resolutions. Not because I’m some saint who always manages to fulfill them all, but because it’s like a chance to reset one’s rudder. We are always growing, changing, sowing — whether we’re aware of it or not — and the new year is a chance to choose what we’re going to…
Chantel 2 Minute Read Cool and clear was the night
That shepherds watched their sheep;
Up in fields on yonder hills,
While in the valley Bethlehem lay asleep…
Trina Holden 3 Minute Read When I was young, my mom used to take us to art shows. This may sound like a crazy idea to you — venturing out with five kids, age 12 and under, to a tent-city full of pottery, original paintings, fine glass and one-of-a-kind treasures. But she’d started when we were young — cultivating an appreciation for beauty and training us to keep our hands to ourselves — and we loved art show days.
Chantel 3 Minute Read Winter was never my favorite of the seasons, but my family and I eagerly looked forward to the days after Thanksgiving when we would fill our long evenings with baking banana bread and packing up little bags of cheer to share with our neighbors near and far at Christmas time.
The nights were often windy and the cold was good at finding any little crack to creep into, even if you dressed up like a snowman with parkas and mittens and scarves.
Elisabeth Adams 3 Minute Read Have you ever thought about the world Jesus was born into?
Of course, the set-up for His arrival began before the foundation of the world, but we can see precise pieces being set into place decades, and even centuries ahead of time…
Gretchen Louise 2 Minute Read I’m looking forward to getting home, my husband sighed as he stretched in the driver’s seat.
I couldn’t help but agree with a tired but happy, “Me, too.”
We’d just been to visit my family. Back to where I used to call home.
But I’d noticed it even more than usual this time…
Katie 6 Minute Read Blues. Why is loneliness associated with blue? Why not red and green — the colors of the Christmas season that strikes loneliness into the heart of the most contented of singles? It’s a season of gifts, when a lot singles would rather return their ‘gift of singleness’.
Caroline Rose Sanders 4 Minute Read Emma Christine couldn’t have known at that time that she would one day take a ship to Ellis Island to meet her fiancé in New York. She couldn’t have known that they would have many descendants and she couldn’t have known that I would be one of them. Yet here we are, well over a hundred years later, preparing to celebrate her homeland and the traditions she brought to ours.
Caroline Rose Sanders 4 Minute Read My mother was in her chair in the living room, laptop on her lap and stacks of books at her feet when she looked up at me with an expression of desperation.
“I’m too Protestant for this!” she cried.
This year, for the first time, my family is celebrating Advent..
The End.
The End.