Pausing on the Fourth Sunday in Advent

Since Elisabet was standing in front of a real Christmas nisse, she ran right up to him and felt his red cloak. Then he bent down and lifted her up on his arm. She tried to pull his beard to find out whether it was real, and it was.

'Why are you so kind?' she asked.

Ho, ho!' laughed the man in red again. 'The more we give away, the richer we become, and the more we keep for ourselves, the poorer we become. That's the mystery of generosity, neither more nor less. But it's the mystery of poverty too.'

The angel Impuriel clapped his hands. 'Well spoken, Bishop!'

-If you haven't already put The Christmas Mystery on your Amazon Wishlist, you'll not have the chance to be delighted by the pilgrims' arrival in Myra in 322AD on December 19th! Suns on edge of bunk beds and Dad creeping in from Carol Service to have an update in excited stereo. Very clever meeting of Bishop Nicholas and the Wise Men!

Schools still closed due to snow here, so the holidays appear to be starting! A Merry Wonder-filled Deep Down Tummy Love Christmas to you all, dear, inspiring, encouraging bloggistes! I have loved this year in Blogdom and look forward to the next! More Friday Cake Bakes, the rest of Alphabe-Thursday, and lots and lots of Pom Pom, Angela, Left-Handed, oh the wealth of it all! The mysterious generosity of you!

Love from all at the Land of the (sometimes tearful) Strawberries xxxxx

Have you seen this yet?

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

No, they're not weeping angels! But they do appear to want in...

As one of my all time favourite quotes would have it: "Kipper was very positive about snow!"

Last day of uniforms and nearly of macarons

I remember last year feeling a very distinct line between Advent and Christmas and being indeed quite reluctant to cross it! This year it is all steaming along with its own momentum and I am cheerfully powerless to have so much as an opinion thereon!

We have had Jo's school play, finally, after snow disruption necessitated a daily performance for most of a month! We have attended our first senior school Carol Service and been moved by the passion of still enthusiastic P4 singers.

Tomorrow marks the beginning of the round of parties and non-uniform days, so my L for Alphabe-Thursday is a resounding last day of uniforms and a less resounding last three macarons from Paris! I plan to ration them strictly; hopefully their demise will coincide with Sunday's mince pies and mulled stuff and the sharing of muchly festive fayre! Ready, steady, ....

A Pause in Advent- Sundays Two and Three!

Bonsoir, companion bloggistes! I have had more than a week off now, and feel ready to offer humble adventures in Advent! Last Sunday I lit my candle here:

It was a whole weekend of abundant peace- much more than Mrs Large's three minutes and forty-five seconds! With lots of opportunites to kneel with all the santon figures of French nativity, a little teacher beside the little millers and shepherds and holy family waiting for the empty crib to be filled.

From the very beginning, reading a whole newspaper and supplements start to finish on the outward trip, I felt released, especially wandering the markets with a vin chaud in hand!

And less like a woman made up entirely of small toys and other flotsam and jetsam of family life, strung out for all to see her weaknesses and helplessness. The morning of sharing His peace with all languages and nations in Notre Dame led to an afternoon of un-peace, being challenged at Beaubourg. Yet both were invigorating! It was good to think as well as breathe!

So now I am home. Where the rhythm of my daily millimetre is less monotonous, with the undercurrent of Immanuel's joy welling up and breaking through! May joy be yours this week and next week and always!

Jis for Joachim and Jesus

I'm now one day late for Alphabe-Thursday again. Oh dear! But this week's J will have to be for Joachim's Advent calendar (see The Christmas Mystery). Elisabet has met the angel Ephiriel and now knows that her race across countries is also taking her back through time.

Elisabet had stopped crying. 'To Bethlehem?'

'Yes. To Bethlehem, to Bethlehem! For that's where Jesus was born.'

Elisabet was very surprised by what the angel had said. In an attempt to hide her astonishment she began to brush soil and grass off her trousers. There were some nasty stains on her red jacket too.

'Then I want to go to Bethlehem,' she said.

The Christmas Mystery

This is my advent calendar- one chapter for every day until The Day. I've just read it with the boys for the first time. Jo fell asleep half-way through, but Mattman most fascinated.

Do you know it? I'm already wary of the consequences of a sub-story about a girl who runs away from her mother in a shop! And how much of John's tale will they grasp? But then I grasp something new from this book every year. From the first year it gave me my image of wisdom- more of that when its day comes! The outstanding quote for today was most apt given my quick and fruitless dash to the local shopping cente tonight!

Perhaps the reason the lamb had come to life and run away from the big store was that it could no longer bear to listen to the cash registers and the talk about buying and selling. And perhaps that was why Elisabet was following it. She had never enjoyed shopping....