Thursday, January 14, 2010

Reflections on Advent

Christmas is over at my house. Mandy took the tree down yesterday, much to the disappointment of Adam (he cried). So even though I'm a little late in posting this, here's what made the Christmas season special for me.

This is the third year that our family and church has participated in Advent Conspiracy, and I feel that each year has been better than the last. This year was no exception. I felt that our church entered into this season in a great way. It seemed to me that most in our community did a better job slowing down and spending less. I heard great stories of relational giving. And we loved all in tangible and practical ways (I'll be sharing this Sunday what we're doing with the money raised through our Advent Conspiracy offering, so stay tuned). Finally, our hearts were captured by the indescribable gift that God gave the world in Jesus.

In the past, I feel like I've concentrated more on my church's experience with Advent than I have my family's, but this year was different. On December 26 I wasn't left thinking, "there's got to be more to this." A few highlights:
  • We weren't nearly as busy as in other years, and I feel like we took advantage of that as a family
  • As far as relational giving goes, Santa brought us a Wii, which has been great fun for the whole family. We brought it to Paducah on Christmas day, and everyone from the age of 4 to 84 played. We're looking forward to having some Wii parties in the future.
  • As far as loving all goes, I wanted to do something to help Adam understand that Christmas is more about getting presents, so we decided to sponsor a child through Compassion. Our sponsor child is a little boy named Gino. Gino is two months younger than Adam and is from the Philippines. Adam has written Gino a card with their picture on it, and yesterday he heard the Philippines mentioned on the news and exclaimed, "That's where Gino lives."

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