{Week 4: An Advent Celebration Series}

*Christmas is only days away and we are completing the Advent season with a blog series exclusively for December!  Four real moms have shared four uniquely diverse ways to celebrate the birth of Jesus.  Each woman is beautifully wise.  Friends, I pray you have been blessed by their hearts and their passions for Jesus. 

It is with a happy heart that I welcome writer and speaker, Rhonda Robinson to the blog this morning.  May her wisdom as a seasoned mother warm your heart and encourage you in your very own season of life.  May this post find you with a warm cup of coffee and a heart preparing Him room with eager anticipation.  Merry Christmas.  Let every heart prepare Him room.*

Does it feel like Christmas yet?

Here in Tennessee the grey days keep rolling by, and autumn has laid down all its color making a clear path for winter to come stomping in.

All the stores are girded for Christmas shoppers, and lists written in crayon are starting to appear on kitchen counters.

The lights and holiday symbols lining the streets are not so subtle hints that the Christmas season is in full swing. Even so, it really doesn’t do much for stirring up the Christmas spirit. Unless, of course, you’re the lady with felt antlers wired to the top of your van.

Children, and the antler lady, don’t need more clues that Christmas is coming. But, if we want Christmas to saturate their childhood memories with warmth and joy, they do need more than toys from us.

I didn’t realize how important the “feeling” of Christmas actually was until I saw the reflection of disappointment, when it was lost, in my daughter’s eyes.

That year, I thought we were particularly blessed. My husband had worked a lot of overtime. It wasn’t very often that we had extra money. At the time, we had five young children under the age of 10. To have extra money durning the holidays seemed like a Christmas miracle.

It was going to be the best Christmas we have ever had. After all, it was certainly the best Christmas I’d ever bought.

From the moment the tree went up, I began playing Christmas music throughout the day. Some were actual songs, but most were instrumental, giving the day a soundtrack of anticipation. Scented candles burned throughout the day, filling our little house with the aroma of pumpkin spice, vanilla and dreams of sugar cookies.

It’s our family tradition to bring out presents only on Christmas Eve. All throughout the day, brightly colored boxes with bows seem to magically appear under the tree. It delights and surprises the children each time they walk into the room.

Our Christmas morning had begun just as I hoped. The children were lost in flurry of shredded red paper and bows. Dolls were hugged, and a little boy found his new best friend in a hamster cage.

I settled on the couch with a cup of coffee, drinking in the smiling faces playing on the floor with their new toys. It was perfect.

Right up until my little girl said, “It doesn’t feel like Christmas.”

Wait. What?

How can that even be? I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I actually said out loud, “You just opened up a ton of toys. How can it not “feel” like Christmas?”

Her eyes dropped to the floor under the weight of my voice. She shrugged her shoulders and mumbled softly, “I don’t know.”

The music had stopped. All of the sights, sounds and smells that put Christmas in the air and filled our home with joy had disappeared into that sea of wrapping paper. Not one toy, or a hundred could replace it.

Every Christmas since, has held the tradition of making our home “feel” like Christmas.

One of my favorite things is collecting antique looking electric candles. I put them in every windowsill. The cold dark evenings transformed into a velvety blue backdrop for the warm glow of the candles that filled the house.

Those candles became the first promise of Christmas.

Now that all our children are grown, their glow fills our home with memories of Christmas past. In my mind’s eye, they light the way for my children to come home for Christmas.

Over the years we’ve had Christmas’s through all seasons of life. Some years there was very little to give. Our children never noticed. It always felt like a wonderful Christmas to them by creating an atmosphere that provoked feelings of peace, joy, and serenity during this blessed season for  family.

~Rhonda Robinson

of A Mother’s Life