Advent for Normal People

When we talk about the liturgical seasons of the church, I think lots of people are immediately intimidated.  I don't see Advent, Lent, and Pentecost (plus lots of others) as outdated, traditional responsibilities for the church.  Rather, I see them as fresh opportunities to look on my relationship with God and walk with others as they do too.  I can't tell you what colors the altar cloths are supposed to be, what the Biblical texts are for every week, or even how long some of the seasons are.  In fact, this post is fully void of an accurate information or facts - and I'm okay with that.

So why observe them?  Why Advent?  People talk a lot about preparing their hearts for Christmas, but how do we do that?

Have you ever reach December 26 and realized you're surrounded by brown tree needles, broken ribbon, and a fridge full of leftovers?  And that's it.  Nothing has changed about you.  Nothing about Christmas has effected your soul.  The past month hasn't made you more like Jesus.

Advent, of all seasons, should be the time of year when we take advantage of the opportunity to  to grow up in Jesus' love and be filled with his spiritual wisdom.  If there is any season when we should sense the Holy Spirit at work, it should be Advent.  Shouldn't our hearts be turned towards God during this time?

I love the story of Mary and Elizabeth.  I tried to talk about it with our 5th and 6th graders on Wednesday, but they just giggled when I said the word "womb" and all comparisons were lost.  But think about what happens when pregnant Elizabeth sees Mary (who is pregnant with Jesus, but nobody knows):

⁴¹ When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit ⁴² and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. ⁴³ And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? ⁴⁴ For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. ⁴⁵ And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.” (Luke 1:41-45)

Our 5th and 6th graders thought it was hilarious that a baby could leap in someone's womb.  So that's as far as we got.  But when I think about Christmas: God coming to earth, God making himself like us, God revealing himself to us as fully as he could, God giving all of himself for us - shouldn't something within me leap with joy?  No, not a baby.  But something?  My affections, my heart, my contenance?  Shouldn't this season be about a perpetual leaping with joy because of the promise of God being fulfilled?  Our redemption is here.

I am kind of a blog addict.  I used to follow a lot of home decor blogs (and by used to, I mean I haven't checked one in ten minutes).  They were like the gateway drug to other blogs: blogs about life, ministry, babies, crafts.  And I was hooked.  Recently, I have discovered bloggers who are challenging my faith.  Crazy huh?

Jessi of The Naptime Diaries is part of something called #SheReadsTruth.  Bloggers came together to do devotions and share their insights on Instagram and Twitter (which is totally optional).  Starting Sunday, they will be doing a daily Advent reading.  If you have a smartphone, you can download the Youversion app, look up the She Reads Truth plans, and start the Advent one Sunday.  OR you can go to their website and sign up for a daily email with the Scripture and devotion in it.  This year's reading has a beautiful set of daily Advent calendar cards to go with it, which you can buy in Jessi's shop here.  Aren't they awesome??  I'm attributing 80% of their awesomeness to them being designed by someone whose last name is Connolly (even spelled the right way, Mom and Dad)!

www.naptimediariesshop.com

I'm so excited to do the reading and have our family follow along with the Scripture cards.

ONE MORE THING ....

As part of Advent, lots of families are doing a different activity every day so that they will savor the season intentionally.  I love this idea.

One of my big-sister-type heroes talk about putting more Jesus in Christmas and I love her ideas. Jessi talks about what her family is doing here, and it kinda makes me want to be her adopted child.  Another blogger puts a unique spin on this concept. Laura makes a list of random acts of kindness that they will do every day of Advent.  In the future, we hope to combine these two ideas into helping our little family focus on growing closer to God together, and sharing Jesus with others in practical ways.

Don't let Christmas pass you by without letting the greatest Gift of all change your heart.  Over and over again.  And leap with joy because you know the Savior is coming!

High Five for Friday!

I'm linking up with Lauren here.  It's Friday, and I'm glad for it.  Here's what's getting me excited this weekend:

1.  It's November.  I'm super pumped about that.  I love a lot of things, but don't love October 31.  The main reason?  I'm the biggest pansy in the world.  I don't like anything remotely scary, and I'm glad to be able to watch commercials again, and not think about creepy crawlers, zombies, or blood.  Yuck.  And November means Thanksgiving, heavy sweaters, scarves, and Not Your Mama's Craft Market!

2. I got my first Stitch Fix in the mail yesterday!  I'll give you all an update on Monday, but it was definitely fun to see what items were hand-picked for me.  I'm excited to update my profile and get the next box (it's definitely going to take some restraint to hold off on that ...)

3. A few nights ago at dinner, Emmalyn reached out both of her hands, and made Eric and I hold on for a good three-four minutes, long enough for Eric to snap this photo.  We have no idea what caused her to do that, but it was definitely cute!

4. Tomorrow at church, we are having a youth area cleaning day.  This shouldn't be so exciting, but I am so ready to have our stuff sorted out.  It's a little late in the year to say, "we had a busy summer and things really piled up", but I'm still saying it.  Get off my back.  Here's a sneak peek of the "before". (In all fairness, an Eagle Scout is building storage for us and cleaned out our closets and put everything in one room.  Still.  It's a lot.)  What's your favorite thing in the photo?

5. I finished a Beth Moore study this week!  Okay, so I still have some book sessions to do, but we finished the videos.  I did it with some women from church and it felt good to finally follow through on doing a Bible study with other women.  We did her study on James and I loved it.  She came make you laugh hysterically and go to tears in about a twelve-second turnaround, and then mull over the lesson all week long.  Good stuff.

Frenzy-Free Entertaining

This weekend, we were supposed to have a youth group bonfire.  Apparently, 40 degrees and constant drizzles don't make for good bonfire conditions.  Instead of canceling altogether, Eric and I invited the kids over to our house.  Can I tell you how happy this makes me?  There's a lot of reasons why: 1. the fact that Eric instantly agrees to my crazy ideas, 2. we get to hang out with students and it's my job, 3. we have a house where we can entertain students and share it our lives with them, 4. It's something we did at our old church and for some reason we don't take the time to do it here as often (some of our best memories came from just hanging out with students).

We came back from vacation Saturday night, went to the grocery store Sunday afternoon, and Eric cleaned while I did some baking.  We decided to focus on the big stuff and not stress about the rest. At the end of the night, we counted 40 students at our house.  It was awesome.  There were moments throughout the night when I just stood back and was filled with delight. I love these kids and it is such a gift to be able to have them at our house.  In high school, my parents hosted my friends a lot.  They were awesome at making us all feel at home it seemed so natural to them (Instead of going out to dinner one year, 20 of my friends came over and had lasagna before the homecoming dance, making it look like they owned an Italian restaurant and did that sort of thing daily).  My parents taught me a lot about entertaining, especially on the fly (due to having a daughter who liked to spring house guests on them - in high school and even college), and here's some tips.

1. Take shoes off at the door.  We aren't militant about it, but it sure does help. I'm not a stellar housekeeper.  The counters were wiped, and the floors were vacuumed, but I didn't dust or mop before students came in.  They didn't notice, and I didn't either.  But taking shoes off helps a lot with the aftermath of a good party. Students instantly do it once they see  a pile, and adults are welcome to leave theirs on.  Here's just a few of the shoes gathered in our door.  (One time in high school, my brother tied all of my friends' shoes together when they came over ... that made for an interesting departure!)  

2. Keep the food simple.  Kids are just as happy with chips, pop, and pizza.  I usually make something homemade (in this case, ginger cookies) - because who doesn't love the smell of homemade cookies? My mom always made cookies for us and it was an awesome homemade treat.  She also was sure to have a veggie tray and fruit sitting out, and I picked up her cues.  We had a veggie tray on Sunday and it was almost demolished.  We ordered six large pizzas on Sunday night and called for three more - all were gone.

3. Make people feel welcome.  Between my brothers and I, we brought a host of different types of people to my parent's house.  My parents were welcoming to every person who walked in, and never judged them.  My dad masterfully welcomed everyone, and both my parents seemed relaxed.  They never mumbled about loud teenagers, rolled their eyes at us, or got worked up about people trampling through their house.  They made sure our home was a place where everyone was welcome, and all could feel comfortable

4. Have fun!  Savor the gift of teenagers actually wanting to be at your house, and let them have fun.  This is the stuff memories are made of - trust me, I lived it!  We try to keep a balance of engaging with students and letting them do their own thing when we're around them.  We don't force ourselves into their games or situations, but let them know we're not "too mature" to sit and laugh and play with them.

Looking at these pictures, I'm absolutely convinced we could have fit at least twenty more kids in.  Next time! What tips do you have for entertaining teenagers?

One more tip is to start cleaning up as the party is winding down.  Don't leave it all for 10 or 11 p.m. when the kids are gone.  Since our party was from 6-8, I started cleaning things up around 7:45 and students pitched in to help.  By 8:30, there was no clean up left to do, and we could relax for a little bit before the week began.

Perfectly Pumpkin Pancakes

I love pancakes.  They represent all that is good in the world - sweet, carb, homemade, Saturday goodness.  While they beckon to the best of the weekend for most of us, I can't resist a little weeknight brinner every once in a while.  Breakfast for dinner is sure to put a positive spin on any evening.  My mom found a great recipe for pancakes a while back, and a few weeks ago, I decided to eat everything in our pantry.  Last fall, I heard there was going to be a shortage of pumpkin puree out there, so I stocked up.  One year later, I still hadn't touched any of the cans.  So I took my mom's recipe, tweaked it, and wound up with this delicious fall breakfast/brinner/snack:

Wet ingredients:

1 cup milk

3 T. white vinegar

2 eggs

1/4 cup melted butter (1/2 stick)

1 t. vanilla

1 cup pumpkin puree (1/2 a 16 oz. can)

Dry ingredients:

2 cups flour

1/4 cup sugar

2 t. baking powder

1 t. baking soda

1 t. salt

1 t. cinnamon

1 t. allspice

1/2 t. ginger

1. Combine milk and white vinegar and set aside for five minutes to "sour". (This is a genius way to make buttermilk - whenever I buy it at the store, I never use the whole container.  And does anyone else store their vinegar under the sink even though they only  use it for cooking?  Or is that just me?)

2.  Combine all dry ingredients and stir well.  Set aside.

3. Once milk is "soured", whisk the egg and butter into the milk, then add vanilla and pumpkin puree.  

4. Whisk dry mixture into wet mixture, making sure to get rid of lumps but not over stirring.  Don't worry, this is a thick batter. I let it sit for a few minutes before putting the batter on the griddle (which works out pretty well, because I generally forget to heat the griddle before I start).

5. Use a full 1/4 cup measuring cup to scoop batter onto griddle.  When I do that, I end up with at least 12 pancakes.  You'll know when to flip them as the uncooked side will have tiny bubbles all over the top of them.  Don't flip too early - being that this is a thick batter, you don't want them to be too doughy by flipping early.  

6. Add butter, and pour on the maple syrup and then savor every bit of pumpkin goodness.  At this point I need to tell you something.  Aunt Jemina was not invited to this pancake party, so go ahead and spring for real maple syrup.  You'll thank me later.

Have a great day and enjoy your pumpkin pancakes!  

High Five For Friday

1. We are combining vacation with a church meeting this week.  We decided to rent a cabin outside of Lake Junaluska and this is the view from our porch.  Wow.  It's been great (lots of fried food and family time)!

2.  On Tuesday, I scheduled my last seminary class ever.  I'm walking in December, but have to talk one more class in J-Term.  Regsistering for that felt oh-so-good.  I am not nearly as excited about having a masters degree as I am about not feeling guilty when I choose to watch television over read for class anymore. :)

3.  I am missing youth group kids in the midst of the past few weeks as I've put my mind to behind-the-scenes work lately.  I'm already planning to remedy that in the next week, which surely means Starbucks or Chipotle, or at least some homemade chocolate chip cookies.

4. Hot Apple Cider.  I had a cup of it last night.  Why have I not been drinking it constantly?  Making a mental note to replace all beverages with hot pressed apple goodness from now on ....

5.  In following up to my recent post considering my closet, and have major purging plans in mind.  I heard about a company called Stitch Fix  through Blair at Wild and Precious and am seriously considering trying it out to get more A+ items in my wardrobe.  I'm a little nervous, but figure it's a $20 loss if I hate everything, and I don't have to do a monthly commitment.  It could be fun to have someone else pick out clothes for me!  As a person addicted to clearance tags, it may help me to make some purchases that are long-term items for my closet rather than impulse purchases.  If I try it out, I'll definitely let you know.