Advent Word - December 10 - #grace

The "Advent Word" practice is a daily meditation on a given word and an opportunity to share that reflection on social media with others who are keeping this practice. It's akin to an Advent calendar, but with many boxes to open on a given day. Sometimes the reflections are sincere, and sometimes they're a little silly, but at the end of the day, it's a practice set aside to help us observe the season of Advent in the midst of the world's busyness. With all of that in mind, this is going to be my attempt to observe the Advent Word practice. I wish I could promise a reflection every day, and we'll see where this goes together.

For at least the last eight or nine years, we've had one of those Christmas elves in our house. It was given to us by a friend before our daughter was old enough to know what it was, and I guess in the next year or so after that our elf Jonathan began to visit our home each Advent. Our elf has never been an agent of the state reporting back to the North Pole about the behavior of our kids. Instead, he started out as "agent of Advent," and the kids would get a felt ornament to add to a tree when they completed their Advent mission, but as they've gotten older he's gotten more into different kinds of mischief and hijinx. I can't wait to put together an album of sorts of all of his doings because it'll be fun to look back on and remember, especially as the kids get older and get more knowledgeable about the "Christmas secret."

Last year and this year, though, the elf has gotten kind of tired. He's not into as much mess-making, and he's kind of run out of places to hide. So instead, he just moves from spot to spot. And while there isn't the excitement of finding him every morning and seeing what he did the night before, it is still something that they do when they think about it. Something like, "Did you find find Jonathan?" Or "I haven't found Jonathan yet." As slow a the elf has gotten in his age, though, there does still seem to be at least a little bit of magic and mystery involved there, and for that, I'm still grateful.

Ultimately, I wonder, though, if the grace that was shown in those early years of the elf and all of his tricks bringing them joy and happiness in the morning and excitement throughout Advent is still being shown through them to us, to me, as they seek him out and try to hold on to some of that magic and imagination of the season. They may not know it or realize it, but them continuing to play along makes me so happy. And if I'm honest, it's going to be a little bit bittersweet to me when they want to start participating in the elf's tricks, too. But you know what? There's grace in that, too, because hopefully they'll have learned, in some small measure, the purpose of this season is pouring out onto others the grace we have received ourselves.