2020 Parishioner Advent Reflection Day 18
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When I was a little girl, growing up on a farm in Sweden, my family went to church service at 7 a.m. on Christmas Day morning. In Swedish we call this service Julotta.
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I love Christmas music, all kinds of Christmas music. I always have and I always will. I am one of those people who play Christmas songs the whole year through. There is just something about them that never gets old. They always lift my spirits! I remember growing up listening to the TIME/LIFE three-album set…
The Christmas Truce of 1914 “The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it” John 1:5 Whenever I hear that verse on Christmas, I think of its profound mystical meaning, however, I also think of the most moving modern story of Christmas: The Christmas Truce of World War I in 1914. On…
Each October and November, I get in the mood to do “fall cleaning”. As a kid, I helped my mom wash walls and windows, and ready our home for harsh Connecticut winters. We packed away summer bedspreads and curtains and replaced them with heavier bedding and window coverings. After a few days of housework, we…
As a child, I had the advantage of growing up in a church community with long-standing Christmas traditions. Long before the Halloween decorations came down and the last piece of Thanksgiving pies were joyfully eaten, plans were underway for decorating the Sanctuary, gathering Christmas Carolers to visit homes, making costumes for the Christmas pageant and deciding…
Waiting for Christmas! As a child growing up in Unionville, PA, I remember Christmas “waiting” with my 5 siblings as a time that took way too long and might never get here. But mom and dad were poor and they made it a time for Santa wishes, stockings (real, not fancy ones) hanging by the fireplace,…
As the youngest (by many years) of six children, my earliest and favorite memory of Christmas has always been Christmas Eve. Our family would attend our church service, usually taking up a whole pew, and I had many close relatives who were church members as well, so we presented quite a large group. It was…
