“Christmas is really for the children,” wrote our friend Steve Turner in a poem that’s meant to get you thinking about how we celebrate our Christian holidays: Christmas is really for the children. Especially for children who like animals, stables, stars and babies wrapped in swaddling clothes. Then there are wise men, kings in fine […]
CHRISTMAS EVE: “The First Noel”
Christmas wouldn’t be the same at our house without a Bûche de Noël — that luscious chocolate sponge cake rolled with cream and decorated with chocolate icing to look like a log. Half the fun is making the garnish: tiny, realistic mushrooms piped from meringue and dusted with cinnamon. For me, it’s a nod to the […]
ADVENT 4, CELEBRATING LIGHT: “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel”
Here He Comes! Advent anticipation moved up a notch this week with the start of the “Golden Nights of Advent,” the octave leading up to Christmas Eve. Beginning the evening of December 17, religious communities in monasteries and convents all over the world sing one of the beautiful “O Antiphons” before and after the Magnificat […]
ADVENT 3, PROCLAIMING JOY: “Joy to the World!”
From where I lay on the third floor under the eaves, I could hear the piano. “Joy to the world, the Lord is come!” My aunt was visiting, and she thundered away without thinking of the children above, who were meant to be sleeping. Dum – dum – dah-dum … dah-dum – dum – dum! […]
ADVENT 2, EXPECTING A SAVIOR: “Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming”
O, the thrill a new baby brings! When our oldest was pregnant with her first child, we were beyond excited. By Advent, Abby was into her eighth month and was all baby and promise – down to the glow that never seems to leave her. I’ll never forget the day she pulled my hand to […]
ADVENT 1, YEARNING FOR PEACE – “O Holy Night”
As we head into Advent in an increasingly contentious world … might the answer be a simple song? A decade ago, a Saturday Night Live skit featured a family falling out over political and social differences at a Thanksgiving dinner — only to be saved when a little girl plays Adele’s then-new breakaway song, “Hello:” […]
