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Happy St. Nicolas Day! Saint Nicholas was a real person. He was the Bishop of Myra in the 4th century and took part in the great church council of Nicaea which gave us the Nicene Creed - the one we recite every Sunday in Church! It is said that he was extremely concerned with the welfare of children and there are many legends about his good deeds. Most of the Christian world still remembers Saint Nicholas and celebrates his life on December 6. He is depicted as a bishop of the church, with his cope, mitre, and crozier. When people dress up as Saint Nicholas, they dress like a bishop and when they make cookies on his feast day, the cookies are cut out in the shape of a bishop with a staff. But in the United States he has become known as Santa Claus or Jolly old St. Nick and instead of remembering him on his feast day, he is believed to give gifts, with the help of elves and flying reindeer, on Christmas morning. Saint Nicholas Day and the eve of his feast are an excellent way to re-educate our children on the true role of Saint Nicholas. He cared for children and for the poor. He gave to people who were in need. He would never have wanted to be the focus of Christmas! Saint Nicholas gave because Jesus had already given everything. Saint Nicholas would point us all back to Jesus.

Advent is all about slowing down, waiting and preparing our hearts for the coming Lord. Our world pushes us in a different direction. It tells us to rush, to worry, to frantically try to find that perfect gift. This Advent, why not try something different for all of the adults in your life*? Shop now and shop in a radically different way. This year, instead of buying gifts, John and I made donations to a ministry that we love and that is making a life and death difference in the lives of the precious people in Haiti. We feel like our gifts really mean something now. @konbithaiti *Note that I said "adults" because I don't think this should be done for the children in your life.

Tomorrow is the first day of Advent! Each Advent, we wait with the prophets and with all of creation for the birth of the promised Savior. The prophets’ call grows silent for 400 years and then suddenly, out of nowhere, the Almighty God stretches forth His hand to a small town and calls a seemingly insignificant young girl and she says “yes”. The God of the universe humbles himself and makes himself flesh, to fully humble himself, and to fully walk with us in our sorrow. He takes the form of a helpless babe. It is a great mystery. It is the Incarnation. It is God with us, Emmanuel. This event is so spectacular, so exceptional, and so important that time itself starts here. The first day of the Church year is the first Sunday of Advent. Advent comes from the Latin “Adventus” and simply means "coming." The Season of Advent begins four Sundays before Christmas and is a time for us to prepare not only for the celebration of the coming of Christ as a babe on Christmas Day, but also for the Second Coming of Christ when He will return in triumph to judge the world.

Advent is only 11 days away! Advent simply means “coming” and is the season where Christians all over the world prepare their hearts for the coming of the savior, Jesus Christ. I am excited that my book, A Thrill of Hope: Celebrating Advent at Home can be your guide. It is filled with Advent traditions and recipes from around the world as well as the history of the season and family devotions. Available now on Amazon! The link to purchase is in my profile!

Sometimes you just need to leave the well beaten path. We could have done morning devotions around the kitchen table as usual but my youngest asked to do devotions at this “really cool spot” she had found. A request and a hesitant “yes” combined to become sacred space. An ordinary country road transformed with whirlpools and roaring white waters. We watched together in awe.

This day has been full of emotions. All kinds of emotions. My husband and I watched with tears as our 16 year old drove herself to school for the first time. Those sweet early morning and afternoon pick ups with her have now been replaced (tears again!) with early morning and afternoon pick ups with our 15 year old who entered public school for the first time ever. I returned home with tears but also joy as I embark on another year homeschooling my oldest and my youngest. It’s so hard to feel it all at once. Anyone else feeling torn today?

We just celebrated my youngest daughter’s birthday and her birthday cake request was one of my all time favorites...Hummingbird Cake! My mother always made it for us growing up and she was famous for it at our church. Everyone always hoped that she would bring it to the church picnics. If you are not familiar with the cake, it is a moist three layer cake with cream cheese frosting (see, I do like cream cheese frosting!) with cinnamon, banana, crushed pineapple and toasted pecans. If that sounds weird to you, trust me, it’s magical. Turns out, it was submitted to Southern Living Magazine in 1978 and has been their most popular cake ever! Are you guys familiar with it? Maybe it's just a southern thing? If you’d like to try this amazingness, here’s the link to the original recipe:https://www.southernliving.com/.../hummingbird-cake-recipe Bonus - you can always make a dad joke and say that actual hummingbirds are in the cake. My husband does... every. single. time. Enjoy!

The women on my mother’s side are quilt makers. Quilts were passed down when my great great grandmother died and when my great grandmother died. They were made into pallets when grandkids spent the night and some were so precious they were displayed on a quilt rack. When I was in elementary school, my grandmother decided it was time to make each of her granddaughters a quilt. Mine was a pastel dream: calico patterns in pale pink, lavender, baby blue and yellow. I LOVED that quilt. When it was time for my oldest daughter to have her own room, I knew just what to do. I painted her room a perfect shell pink and tied it all together with my grandmother's quilt at the foot of her bed. My daughter had a passionate love for black Sharpies. It didn’t matter how well I hid them, she always managed to find them. One day, as I was making her bed, I noticed to my horror long black Sharpie slashes on her quilt. I do not remember if I yelled or not but I do remember being so, so sad. I didn’t want to keep my beautiful quilt hidden but I also didn’t want it marred by Sharpie! I made a choice right then to leave that quilt with her. I straightened it every day, ruefully noticing new additions of pink nail polish and pen. My daughter is 16 now. Yesterday I took her to the DMV to get her driver’s license. She nervously obeyed the instructor’s tasks and she passed. She’s a driver now! When we got home, she excitedly asked if she could drive herself to the beach to meet her friends. Of course I said “yes” but then she just left. Just like that, she drove away without me. The little girl who scribbled on my grandmother’s quilt was not little anymore. She’s a young lady who is gaining independence and will one day become a mother of her own. I look at that quilt now and gosh, I am so thankful for those Sharpie marks! It makes me sick to imagine not having those precious little slashes across the solid pink squares. What caused me such pain is now one of my greatest treasures. What if I had kept that quilt hidden away, safe from harm? Squares that were lovingly pieced and stitched by my grandmother were layered with my little girl’s scribbles. It's such a treasure!

Today is Pentecost! Pentecost is the day that the church celebrates the gift of the Holy Spirit and the birth of the church. It is a major feast day, coming right after Christmas and Easter. Before Jesus ascended into heaven, he instructed his disciples to wait and pray in Jerusalem until they received the gift that they had been promised. A Comforter would come that would bring a baptism of fire and power. The disciples waited and prayed in the upper room for nine days. On the ninth day, the day of Pentecost, a loud noise like a driving wind filled the house. Then tongues of fire appeared which parted and came to rest on each of them. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues. A really cool thing about Pentecost is that it occurred during a Jewish holy day where devout Jews from every nation were staying in Jerusalem. When the people heard the sound of the roaring winds, a large crowd gathered and were confused because they heard the disciples speaking in their own particular language. The people were astounded because they knew that the disciples were Galileans and could not figure out how the Galileans were speaking their language. In the crowd’s own languages, the disciples were speaking of the mighty acts of God. Through the gift of the Holy Spirit, many were saved on that day, the followers of Jesus were given understanding of what had happened and what was going to happen. They were also given boldness and direction. In this awesome moment The Church, the Body of Christ was born! Many churches have a Holy Spirit hole in the roof of the church where a dove would be dropped down, red flower petals or flaming straw(!!!!). Celebrate this special day in your own home by putting a red tablecloth on your table or making a red food like red velvet cake.

Today is Ascension Day! It is the day that we remember Jesus’ ascent into heaven. After Jesus’ resurrection, He revealed himself to His disciples over a period of forty days. He ate with them and taught them all about the kingdom of God. One day, while He was eating with them, He told them that they were to stay in Jerusalem and wait for the gift His Father had promised. He told them that they would be baptized by fire and the Holy Spirit and that they would receive power and that they would be His witnesses throughout all the world.On the fortieth day, Jesus brought them out into the countryside. He lifted up His hands and blessed them. As He was blessing them, He was lifted up into the clouds. While the disciples were looking up into the sky, two men dressed in white stood beside them and asked why they were looking into the sky? They explained that Jesus would return in the same way that He went into heaven. The disciples immediately began worshipping the Lord and returned to Jerusalem filled with great joy. There they stayed for nine days, praying and praising God. Together with Mary and the disciples, we marvel at what happened. Jesus defied all earthly laws and ascended up into the clouds to sit at the right hand of the Father. We also wait for a gift that has been promised to us. We don't fully understand what it is but we have been told to wait and pray. Ascension Day is a feast day and is celebrated all over the world. In many countries, there is a “beating of the bounds” where the boundaries of the church property are beaten with bundles of sticks and prayed over. In Portugal, they gather wheat stalks and place them in their homes. In many churches, a statue of the Risen Lord was lifted on wires up through a hole in the ceiling of the church. Then gifts of cookies, fruit, flowers and green branches rained down from the hole and into the church. Celebrate Ascension by going over the gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit, sit outside and look at the clouds, fly a kite or make fluffy white meringues. And while you are doing any of those things, rejoice that Jesus did not leave us alone but sent the gift of the Holy Spirit to change us and unite us.

I dropped my youngest off with a group of her friends at a birthday party last week. I had this rare moment, a twenty minute drive with no kids, listening to MY music! Someone cue the heavenly chorus! I am really into Ellie Holcomb right now. If you haven’t listened to her, you should give her a try. The way she writes is so unique and I love it. I was listening to one of her latest releases, “Canyon”, and at the end of the song there’s a bridge that starts I walked into the desert and I found you You set a table for me I knew the passage. You probably know the passage. It’s from Psalm 23, the psalm that talks about the Lord being our shepherd and that we shall not want. I also knew the line that was coming next… In the presence of my enemies I really don’t like that line. It's always bothered me. It’s so BOOM, in your face, enemies! God’s on my side, not yours and you are going to watch as He feeds me! But then the song goes on In the presence of my enemies To share with my enemies No longer my enemies. No longer my enemies The next thing I knew I was crying. Could that bridge be true? I walked into the house stunned. My husband was standing in the kitchen and asked if I was ok. I felt so silly and overly emotional about a couple of lines in a song. Without playing the song for him, I just pulled the words up online and let him read them. His eyes immediately filled with tears. Neither of us could talk. It was one of those things that was so powerful you just couldn’t talk about it right then. Could it be that God is so good, so lavish in His love for all of us that the table He sets for me is also an invitation for you? Maybe the table really is set so that I can share with my enemies who are no longer my enemies because of the blood of Jesus Christ. You set a table for me In the presence of my enemies To share with my enemies No longer my enemies No longer my enemies “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation.” Ephesians 1:13

I write about celebrating the seasons of the church in the home. I share not only my family’s recipes and traditions but recipes and traditions from Christians around the world. One of the things that people often mention to me is that they wish they had known about these faith traditions years ago or that you can only have faith based traditions if you are married or have little kids. There is a sense of sadness about it all like they just don’t qualify to have traditions or it's just too late to start. But traditions are a funny thing. When do traditions actually become traditions? When is it “ok” to start them? Can you even start them or do they have to be passed from generation to generation? This past year, my youngest daughter developed an intense passion for baking. In her search for new recipes, she discovered the famous baker, Richard Bertinet’s Cinnamon Buns. That Sunday, after church, she printed out her recipe and set to work. As the aroma of the buns filled the house, the whole family hovered in the kitchen, wondering what amazing treat awaited us. We all marvelled at the intricate beauty of the braided buns and “oohed and aahed” over the very best cinnamon buns we had ever tasted. Now, every Sunday, we beg my youngest to make her cinnamon buns. In such a short amount of time, those cinnamon buns have become an unexpected and firmly entrenched tradition in our family. Cinnamon buns are suddenly the thing our family looks forward to every Sunday. Our family is so much richer now because of the tradition that she created! No matter if you are single or your kids are grown or your kids are little, there is always room for a new tradition! Start today! Here’s the recipe for the cinnamon buns. I even included my youngest’s conversion chart! : ) For the recipe:https://us.gozney.com/blogs/recipes/cinnamon-buns-recipe