advent update

Things are pretty busy around here. We had a wedding last weekend, the girls were flower girls and I was a bridesmaid, and it was wonderful (more about that to come.) This weekend we have friends coming over for a BBQ, and so in between the two events I'm trying to get the house in order, finish all the big jobs we started when we thought we might be putting the house on the market (like putting mulch on the garden and cleaning the windows!) and do a bit of Christmas shopping. I don't want the rest of this month too feel so busy, and yet it is all good and important.

And then, in the midst of all that, it's Advent, and we are trying not to lose sight of it. Our Advent calendar gets opened pretty much every other day, and the girls are loving that. We've got the nativity scene Paddy's mum gave us on the piano. Mary and Joseph are making their long journey up and down the piles of books on top of the piano towards the stable. The figures get moved around every now and then by little fingers, but we're trying to stick to a "only on Advent Sundays" rule for re-arranging the scene owing to their break-ability. It kind of works. The stable has already been decorated with pink ribbon, as you can see, which when you are a six-year old girl, is entirely appropriate. We have a stocking "for Jesus" which holds the notes of gratitude we are writing and which will be opened and read sometime on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. (I can't remember where I got that idea from.) We've got a small pile of Christmas story books in the lounge and we've been reading them at bedtime.

I'd thought we might light candles at dinner time. I read about a family who have a candle-lit dinner every evening during Advent, which I thought was a lovely idea, until I remembered that we are in day-light savings here, and it doesn't get dark until 9pm! So we've had candles at dinner times on Advent Sundays,  but that's all.  I really understand Christmas in winter now. It's nothing to do with snow! It's the fact that you can have candle-light dinners. Light means so much more when it is dark all around. I've been wondering why we love light. Candles, Christmas lights, Christmas light displays.... we love them. Is it because they sparkle and glitter? Or is it because there is something inherently satisfying about seeing light in the midst of darkness? I have to admit that for the first time I've been a bit jealous of those of you who get Christmas in winter. It's so easy to celebrate light when it's winter. Light in winter is warm, hopeful and a longed-for refuge from the cold darkness all around.

Then yesterday I was sitting on our bed working on some thoughts for the Advent talk at church on Sunday. I looked from our bed out over the deck and onto the garden. It was late afternoon and the deck was half in shade. The other half, the half the drying rack filled with washing was on, was in full sunlight. Out in the garden the trees were swishing and swaying in the wind, lit up, glowing in their new green. At the end of the garden, underneath the huge pine tree that hangs over our back fence, were the spidery lines and patches of shade and dappled light where the sunlight hit the trees and spread itself out. Everywhere I looked I saw a story of light and dark, of dark and light. And I realised that light in the midst of darkness isn't the only story to celebrate. Christmas in summer is another story completely, and just as special. We get the sun at its best. We get to see trees glowing green, and intense blue skies. This is the light we celebrate. Blinding, glorious. The light of the world.