On the fifth day of Christmas. . .

The Christmas trees are beginning to line the curbs.  People are packing up their decorations.  For them Christmas is over, and it saddens me, for as George Keck says,  "Christmas is not a day, but a season – a 12-day season lasting from December 25 to January 5 during which Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ."  (Keck has some excellent suggestions for celebrating the 12 days of Christmas as a family in this Lutheran Theological Seminary article from 2008.) 


The weeks of the Advent season - beginning with the fourth Sunday before Christmas - are filled with activity and preparation.  The house is decorated, gifts are purchased and wrapped, and plans are made to spend time with family and friends.  In our work-a-day world there are parties and festivities, but still my heart doesn't truly celebrate during Advent.  It is hopeful and expectant, anticipating the joy to come on Christmas Day, but it does not celebrate.

In an article for ChristianHistory.net Edwin and Jennifer Woodruff Tait write:
"Sometime in November, as things now stand, the "Christmas season" begins. The streets are hung with lights, the stores are decorated with red and green, and you can't turn on the radio without hearing songs about the spirit of the season and the glories of Santa Claus. The excitement builds to a climax on the morning of December 25, and then it stops, abruptly. Christmas is over, the New Year begins, and people go back to their normal lives."
Yes, the excitement stops abruptly - just when it should begin.  The excitement stops when the gifts have been unwrapped.  The focus remains on the gifts we've exchanged and those that Santa has brought, not on the Gift we've been given.   In our culture it's a whirlwind of a day with wrapping paper flying.  And then it's over, packed up and put away.
If your tree is still decorated, continue to enjoy it.  If you have candles in the windows, light them for the world to see.  Rejoice and celebrate!  Give thanks for the greatest gift.

Love came down at Christmas,

Love all lovely, love divine;

Love was born at Christmas,

Star and angels gave the sign.

Worship we the Godhead,

Love incarnate, love divine;

Worship we our Jesus:

But wherewith for sacred sign?

Love shall be our token,

Love shall be yours and love be mine,

Love to God and to all men,

Love for plea and gift and sign.

Christina Georgina Rossetti

Her angels

Her angels

    "Consider this.  These days 

     Angels are tacky" -Jeffery Beam

Not a Hallmark ornament in glowing plastic

nor one of those Christmas light stencils

hanging from the telephone poles at strip malls

in December, wings blinking back and forth

like hands clapping in the cold.

My mother builds angels

from scraps of organza, taffeta, satin

leftover from the wedding dress

she made for her daughter

who left her this summer.

Scraps sewn together the way

God maybe stitches pieces

of those who left us

into elegant patchwork emissaries,

swan-winged guardians

for us, the tacky ones, clumsy here

among our ornaments and lights.

       - Adam Tarleton 

        Christmas 2000

My son wrote this poem for me 10 years ago.  The year I made this angel -

and many more like it.  

 During the Christmas season, my home is awash with angels in all shapes, sizes, and styles.   

They remind me of God's grace.  

 I believe in angels, and in this quote from Sophy Burnham:

"We all have angels guiding us. . . .They look after us.  They heal us, touch us, comfort us with invisible warm hands. . . .What will bring their help?  Asking.  Giving thanks."

 I can't remember when I began to collect angels, but I do remember when I made my first angel.  It was a crocheted angel made to adorn the top of our Christmas tree.  

Some years later, after admiring this angel, a neighbor loaned me a book of patterns for crocheted angels, and I made this one as an ornament.

When cross stitch was all the rage I stitched this little one for the tree.

But the making of angels took on more meaning after my oldest daughter was married in 1994.  I made an angel for her from scraps of the fabric I used to make her wedding dress.  I made myself and the women in my family one from the same pattern but different fabric.  Mine was calico.  the skirt is designed to hold a small bag of potpourri.  

  Each year after that, until just a couple of years ago, I made angels as Christmas gifts for the women in my family, and I also made one for myself.  

I've made tree topper angels

and angels from sea shells.

One of my favorites is this woodland angel with wings of peacock feathers.

There are some small angel tree ornaments

and the angel with wings of copper wire that hovers in my plants.

A dark-haired calico angel with a birdhouse sits on the cookbook shelf

and there is a little round glass angel made from a vase on my dresser.

Friends and family have blessed me with gifts of angels over the years.  In 1996 my oldest daughter stitched this beautiful angel for me as a Christmas gift.

A few years ago I realized that I had enough angel ornaments to fill an entire tree. 

Now the angel tree is the first Christmas decoration to go up each year, and sometimes the last to be packed away.

May you feel the presence of angels around you this Christmas.  May they remind you of the source of all joy - God's love and the precious gift of His Son.

Merry Christmas!

Birthday blessings

My first born child celebrates a birthday tomorrow.  She will be more than twice the age I was when she was born, yet she will always be my little girl.  She has blessed my life since the day she was born.  I created this digital greeting for her using Hallmark's Smilemakers.  She, not the card, is the smilemaker.  Happy Birthday, Tracy.
The beautiful music is by Janet Stolp from her CD "Slow Me Down".  She is accompanied by my brother-in-law, Dave Stuntz.

This digital slideshow customized with Smilebox