Since Christmas is always here too quickly, I'm deep into Advent planning. Because I am homeschooling my oldest two, it feels possible to truly embrace and dwell in the Advent season. We are setting aside our Old Testament study just for the Advent season to do an Advent study, though I will be doing it when my daughter is out of school as well because this is important for the whole family.

I'm also adding to the saints we celebrate in the Advent and Christmas season. We've always been St. Nicholas (December 6th) fans, and he has become particularly special to us because of my German upbringing and my parents' time in Turkey. The kids mostly care about the boots with candy. We are also very fond of St. Martin (November 11th) and St. Michael the Archangel (September 29th). Because these feast days remind us of the great cloud of witnesses who have gone before us and inspire us in our own walk with God, it matters to me that we include their memory in our lives. This year I hope to add St. Catherine (November 15th), St. Lucia (December 13th), St. Basil (January 1st). St. Lucia and St. Herman share a day but St. Lucia has both lots of really neat traditions associated with her day, and a strong history in Sweden, where my husband's family is from, so I'm afraid she is getting precedence in our household.

My prayer in all this is that through the lives of these saints, my children and I see the way their lives point toward Christ, whose birth we will celebrate on Christmas. In addition to doing an Advent study with them, I am setting aside my own Bible reading plan to do a focused Advent study myself. While educating my children is my job as a mother, it is also my duty to myself, and the time spent on their spiritual develompent doesn't actually count as time spent on mine.

It reminds me of talking with a friend who works with Biblical Greek and does a lot of work with the digital side of things both for fun and professionally--find his blog here. While he might spend hours deep in the text of the Bible on any given day, doing academic or professional work on the text is not the same as engaging with it on a spiritual, personal level. That's like making food for a bunch of people and hoping that the snacking you did on the way counted as a nourishing meal for you.

The first Sunday of Advent is the 30th of November this year. I hope your season is wonderful, and blessed, and full of light in the darkness.