Hello loved ones,
The year is waning fast. November flew by, ending in that wonderful and extremely American paean of gluttonous debauchery, Thanksgiving. We carted our kids alongside a pile of mashed potatoes, peach crisp, and sheet pan apple pie over to Illinois to visit our loved ones and stuff our faces in their presence. Many a delightful joke was shared, many a pipe smoked (usually over discussions about presuppositional apologetics and church leadership), many a game played, book shared, cup of coffee guzzled.
And, upon returning, the immediate plunge into decorating ye olde homestead for Christmas. For eight years now, we’ve been snagging our Frasier (and sometimes Concolor) from a local, family-owned Christmas tree farm north of town. We measure and trim it against our ceilings, chop off the end for good water absorption, and layer the lopped boughs around our patio furniture for snowbird cover.
The kids have artificial trees in each of their rooms which they decorate with much oohing and ahhing and “remember this??” every year. I’m on light hanging duty (inside and out), and Linnea does a beautiful job of finishing the family tree and pretty much everything else. We alternate between records like Charlie Brown’s Christmas, Sing the Bible Christmas, and Relient K’s Let It Snow Baby... Let it Reindeer most of the time.
Our Advent celebrations are usually on Sundays, with some fresh-baked Christmas cookies, a stave from the Christmas Carol, and a devotional of some sort (usually ending in singing some favorite carols). This plus all of our church festivities make for full weekends.
This first weekend we were fully snowed in, eight to ten inches arriving in a gale that cancelled our first Advent church service and any other plans we had. But a couple of snow days were just what we needed after all the chaos of transitioning from November to December.
Every year around this time, I get the itch to write Advent poetry. And for a number of years now I’ve published a cycle of poems every December. This is usually behind a paywall, but I’ve been plotting for the past few years to collect these into a physical form... and I finally bit the bullet and did it.
Introducing my third book…
If you’ve been a long-time reader of this Substack, you’ll know some of these poems. There’s a few lesser known and never-in-print lyrics, some favorites from past projects, and every Advent cycle I’ve written over the last few years here on Substack.
Here’s the contents:
I. PRELUDES
triptych for the fall
reaping day
nightfall
beginnings
seldom seen
fertile
LaSalle Street, December
daybreak
drop of water
waking from a winter nap
eucharesque
II. NOCTURNES
advent
rehearse the return
heard once more
do not fear
the ends of the earth
smelter’s magnificat
saints & children
wither, shall we?
III. IN CONVERTENDO
IV. EPIPHANIES
My wish for this collection is for it to be a companion you can return to through whatever winter brings, this year and beyond. I don’t view Advent only as a one month thing, but as a life-long project of hope and expectancy. My prayer is that these poems, by God’s grace, would help fix your eyes on Christ, our past, present, and future Savior and King.
It’s available now via Lulu, ship time of about a week. I hope you’ll pick up a copy to enjoy this December and all Decembers that follow.
That’s all I’ve got for now. Merry Christmas, friends!
Rewatching All Creatures Great and Small, this time with the kids, and what an exercise in hope that series is.
Favorite game was the early Christmas gift, Duel for Middle Earth. This is a two-player game that could not be more perfectly balanced. Three win conditions to choose from, ever-heightening stakes over a perfect runtime, and beautiful art for all of you LOTR fans out there.
Really enjoying a gift from a friend, Beuchner’s Telling the Truth. It’s my first foray into Beuchner, and the dude has a real gift for bringing truth to life through story. Might have to read more of his works. If you’re a fan, what should I read next?
This Sheet Pan Apple Pie recipe really is a perfect option for a crowd, or for those of us who prefer eating apple pie for breakfast for a while after Thanksgiving.
Currently drinking Revolution’s Fistmas, a homebrew raspberry mead, and eggnog with a splash of Wild Turkey.
The kids are into Weird Al these days, and yes, I love it. Also, What Does the Fox Say and, because Nadia is learning French, Flight of the Conchord’s classic, Foux du Fafa.
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