Laurel Elisabeth Stevens

I began Advent with many ideas of how we, as a family, would prepare for Christ’s coming, and some of them we carried through with.  Some of them we didn’t.  It was halfway through week 2 of Advent that I made an Advent wreath and we began lighting candles, but I never did get the traditional purple candles, and I’m finding that white looks rather like Easter.  The stories for the Jesse tree are read about every other day, and thoughts of, “Have I gotten all the right gifts?” too often clutter my mind in unproductive wanderings. There have been surprises though.  In working on the two previous posts I listened to many renditions of anthems, once again immersing myself in the story of the lyrics as well as the beauty of the music.  Elisabeth’s piano playing continues to delight me, and my mom has been playing as well—“What Child is This” and “Lo, How a Rose.”  Henry was in his room singing “O Holy Night” making up words to the parts he didn't know....

It was Christmas Eve.   We sat in semi-darkness in the living room in my grandparents’ house on Hunter’s Run, all of us sitting in chairs and on the soft blue carpet, more or less in a circle: Grandmother, Granddad, Dad, Mom, Tim, Josh, Nathaniel and me.   The only lights were those from the Christmas tree.   We had come from church and our fingers and noses were still chilled from the brisk Pennsylvania air.   The exhilaration of singing carols with a brass ensemble coursed through me, but I was content to be home now, waiting.   I was fourteen, but our tradition of opening one present on Christmas Eve and saving the rest until Christmas morning still had me grinning with anticipation.   But before we could do that Dad began talking to us in a thoughtful voice, asking us if we knew the word “incarnation.”  Sure, I knew it.  It was one of those words we tossed about in church.  Salvation, incarnation, revelation . . .I didn’t need to r...

Last Saturday it was time to take down the tree.  I was ready for it to be gone--the needles were beginning to drop and there were spider webs from the top of the tree to the ceiling.  Maybe those are always there, but this time I could actually see them close up because the tree was nestled against the stairs and the top was clearly visible from the second floor. Three Kings Day . . .Epiphany . . .Heilige Drei Könige had come and gone.   John and I pulled the boxes down from the attic and the kids began removing the ornaments from the tree.  But this time I wanted to pack them more carefully than usual because they would be traveling across the ocean again.  And that made me sad.   I thought of Christmas two years ago when we were still in The Woodlands and oblivious to the upcoming move.  I packed the ornaments up quickly and we shoved them in the back of our “closet of doom”--the one you can’t stand up in and goes way, way back....

Henry woke up early on St. Nicholas' Day.  John was upstairs so he was the one to talk with Henry and send him back to bed, as it was not yet 6:30 AM wake up time.   “Daddy, I had a bad dream.” “Aww, did you?” “Yes.  Daddy, is St. Nikolaus dead?” John answered that yes, he is dead. “Oh.  Then who will put something in my boot?”  he asked worriedly. “Well, who else loves you?” With a bright smile, “Mommy and Daddy!” Then he went back to bed.  John related the story to me before Henry got up again, and I was relieved that all our uncertainties of the night before were resolved.  I guess I imagined that since he knew we loved him, he knew we had filled his boot. Elisabeth was not such an early riser as Henry, but nor was Henry overly anxious to check his boot.  I had to remind him that it was available.  I managed to have him and Elisabeth get dressed before they went downstairs--it was still a school morning after all....

It was time for Christmas trees to be collected this week. I had heard that there was a day that they would be collected and assumed I would need to drag it out to the street, like we do in the U.S. A week or so after Christmas near church I saw piles of trees, but I thought, “Well, that’s in the city. The people that live in apartments need to bring theirs here.” I saw several piles around the city that day, and one on the way home from our tram to our house. That evening I asked my friend B what day we needed to take our trees out. She explained that from the 13th to the 20th or so, trees would be collected . . .from the pile I had seen walking home. So rather than dragging it to the street we would need to drag it oh, a half mile. Now, true, we could’ve put it in our car. But what do you picture when you see a month old Christmas tree in your car? A mess. So, after seeing the pile of trees grow and grow, and even seeing some trees being dragged down the street, the kids and I tried ...