The Advent of Immanuel

I have faint memories from my childhood of counting down (or up) the advent calendar by means of opening little doors on a Christmas-y picture and finding little pieces of chocolate. I'm sure there was more to it than that, but anything else must have seeped into my understanding of what it means to relive the anticipation of our Savior's birth. (Our trip to the German School Christmas Bazaar taught us that the "picture with chocolates behind little doors" thing is claimed as originated by the Germans…well huh, probably for the better – Germans have MUCH better chocolate than Americans!)

This year for the first time, Andrea, "borrowing some ideas from her B.C. loving sister-in-law," put together a series of fun little activities and lessons for Micah to build toward Christmas. Each day has its own little cloth bag which are numbered and hung on our tree (I mean, branch). Micah gets to look for that day's number, open it, hear a part of the Luke birth story, answer a question and do a fun activity. Since most of these have happened while I was at the office, I often get to hear about it at the end of the day (and sometimes reap the benefits when baked goods are the order for the day!).

Opening the Advent activity bag and finding cookie cutters!! Woohoo!

And so, this year's Christmas feels a bit more Christmas-y than the past years. We've enjoyed making sugar cookies one day and frosting/decorating them the next. Micah and Grace got to see Santa at the German Bazaar, but the choice of a skinny Ethiopian greeting everyone in German kinda threw us all for a loop. Micah reluctantly sat on his lap, but only after negotiating that he receive an extra cookie/candy from Santa's stash afterward.

 One day's activity was to make strings of popcorn garland to put on our Christmas branch. Rumor has it that all of Micah's popcorn unfortunately got rerouted on its way to his string and is still yet to be found. And then I had to laugh when I came home one day and saw pictures on the camera of Micah and Grace enjoying an afternoon at the sledding hill!

It isn't all goofing around with bellies full of goodies. Andrea is also introducing Micah to some very foundational elements of our faith. I am so thankful for a wife who is pouring valuable truths into our family. As for what Micah is retaining from these mini-lessons, that is yet to be seen, but I can assure you – that little sponge inside his noggin sucks up a whole lot more than we often realize. Last week in church, when the Christmas carols began, we all rose from our seats, including Micah whose chin barely summited the backrest of the chair in front of him. "Rejoice, rejoice, Immaaanuel." Suddenly Micah's chin leaped off the chair and pointed directly up at me. "Hey, they’re talking about Rachel!” (aka. Rejoice). “Not exactly,” I said as I hushed him back into his dormant position. The second time through the chorus however, he piped up again, “He they said Immanuel." Surprised that he had not only heard and correctly processed that long word made even longer by the song, I bent down, hoping for a teachable moment, "Do you know what Immanuel means?" Surely, I could put my seminary education to work here…or so I thought. "Yea, it means God with us!" Micah responded without hesitation. Impressed at his confident response, I thought about it a bit more: Immanuel, God with us. A lesson so simple that a three-year-old can learn it, and yet so complex that the greatest scholars never truly mine the depths of meaning and significance. As the carol continued, my heart entered deeper into worship.