First Sunday in Advent

Sunday was looking quite broken up and busy so we celebrated our Family Memorial Day over the whole weekend and that made it quite special. Jamie took Grace and Jack skating in Oxford on Saturday, meeting up with students from Grace's college course, and I cooked ALL afternoon! When they arrived home I had a lovely special meal waiting for them, with all their favourite things.

After dinner, Jamie wanted to sing some songs, and Grace, Jamie and I will sing at the drop of a hat, so out came the guitar. It's a bit like living in a Bollywood movie in our house at times, except without the bangra dancing and with less colourful skirts.{g} We sang songs of praise and thankfulness for God's goodness. Jack even attempted some harmonies, which was a blessing, because normally he just mimes. What can I say? He's almost 15. I don't think 15 year old boys are known for their enthusiastic singing.

After we'd got that out of our system, we looked for the book in which we'd written last year's blessings and......couldn't find it, so we started a new one. (Rolling my eyes, here.) We all called out all the ways God has blessed us for the last year and believe me there was a huge number. I struggled to write them all down, then Jamie took over when I got cramp in my hand!

Then we prayed our thanks, naming each thing individually. It was a VERY useful thing for a Glass-Half-Empty girl like myself. And the kids really saw the point of doing it, though Jack was reluctant at first.On Sunday morning, we all shipped out early to church as Grace had been asked to sing in the youth band, who were leading the worship that day. There was to be the baptism of a teenage girl that morning and she had invited a large cohort of teenage girls along to witness this very important act. We had some wonderful worship.

Later, Jamie took the kids back for a special tea at the Baptismal Candidate's house and they went on to the youth service in the evening. It was a busy Sunday for them. Jamie and I worked on the Life-Songs website and made quite a lot of phone-calls in the evening.

I had small gifts for the kids which I forgot to give them so I'll find a suitable time in the week, or maybe I'll wait until next Sunday! This is the first year in many years that we don't have an advent wreath and no one has missed it so far. Both the kids have also agreed that they are too old for one of the Advent books we normally read and to be honest, even last year, it was proving difficult to find the time in all our various activities to fit those daily readings in. I think the time for such things in our family is gradually passing.

I think that, this year, we will have to acknowledge that as the 'children' grow up and become more engaged in their own independent lives and responsibilities, the opportunities for pulling us all together every day for an joint Advent study or activity are dwindling. And this, sad though it is in many ways, is exactly as it should be. Instead, I think we'll be concentrating on the Advent Sundays this year as a time for special ideas, gifts, readings, singing etc. Maybe I'll have a different theme for each Sunday. Mmmm.... lots to think about this week!