About Ann Voskamp

A blue jay sits in the spruce boughs. The washing machine hums as it scales Mount Washmore. A half dozen boisterous kids play dominoes and cut paper and sew material and clack the long needles.

I’m standing in the kitchen with the dishes stacked and the floors fallen and scattered and all the world on a decided, marvelous tilt.

Dress-up clothes and balloons and mittens and recipe books and pins and needles congeal and wiggle and set in the mold of this place….

[Read more...]

Come noon, and I am feeling it, like someone turned the heat to searing high.

The Farmer walks in the back door looking for a heaping plate of steaming hot food, the littlest has dissolved into a puddle of tears, one child needs to know what 9 books would cost if 3 books cost $76 and two boys scuffle over a disputed eraser.

Anyone know the escape route to the big flashing exit sign?

But I have to feed them all first.

I toss the potatoes into the pressure cooker, grandma’s pressure cooker from the 50′s, the one with the decades old, hand-smoothed wooden handles. I lock on the lid. Drop on the weight. [Read more...]

The Christ Child in the manger, He takes on the garment of fragile flesh to release us from being beasts of burden.

I think of this often, when I feel Christmas as a weight, burden that I’m sagging under for weeks. Whenever Christmas begins to burden, it’s a sign that I’ve taken on something of the world and not of Christ.

Christmas comes to us like the Cross — asking nothing of us but embrace. So I lay down the expectations and the efforts, the perfectionism and performance, and I simply wait for His coming.His blood does all the work. He shed it to release us from burden– so we embrace a peacefulAdvent…

Our Three Simple Practices for a PeacefulAdvent

1. Light the Fire

When night falls early and the snow lies late,we light candles, we light the fire , we light hearts, with the flickering flame.

The season ofAdventis about waiting and watching for the coming Light.A candle, a match– simple, inexpensive, unobtrusive — and we turn out the lights on the day’s creative mess and we light a light to see the light that dawns on those living in the land of the shadow of death.

Each night ofAdvent, welight the fireand answer Isaiah’s invitation to Come Behold, He who Comes.

2. Gather for Warmth

In a circle, in a halo of light, in a moment of quiet, we gather together around the lit flame, around the hearth, and the bodies press close and our breathing slows andwe who are cold are kindled.

Even if only for a handful of moments, tolight the fire, the candles, andcollect each other close, like shepherds out on the hills gathered together in community, keeping watch over the flock by night. The warmth is in the gathering, in the waiting together.

3. Step into the Light

The humble wick lit and the day’s wanderers simply gathered close on laps and rocking chairs and pillows, we step into the Light –the Light of a few verses of Scripture;the Light of afew notes of song;the Light offew words of prayer. Choose one; choose all. Simply keep it simple: peaceful and without burden.

Before bed, before the flame, before each other,we step into the Coming Light.

• It may be a Scripture from our A Jesus Advent Celebration — every story unwraps more of His Love  –  a Jesse Tree Journey , (downloadable and printable here ) a few words of reflection, and the hanging of an ornament.

• It might simply be a child slipping a hand into one of Grandma Voskamp’s knitted socks of the stocking advent calendar , pulling out one of the Advent Bible verses for the day , another child offering some thoughts, then a Christmas carol sung together.

• It might be a
  favorite

  Christmas

  storybook

  or picture book

  read aloud, toes snuggled under blankets and the shadows kept at bay with the dancing eyes.

Some nights, it might be all that and more –hot chocolate and popcorn and a sing-song– and some nights it might be but a moment and heads simply bowed in prayer. But each evening of Advent , to light the fire, to gather together for soul warmth, to step into His Light.That’s all.

No ingredients, recipe, paint, glue gun, glitter, decorations, ribbon or scissors (!!) required– just a simple candle, a hand to hold, a heart seeking its true Home.

For Christmas isn’t the making of a product;Christmas is the meeting of a Person.

Each
evening ofAdvent– in candle light, in love’s light, in Jesus Light
– we peacefully rest, for we have no Christmas to make or buy. We have
only a Christmasto find.

And we simply –joyfully– find Christmas in Christ.