MollyMadonna.com

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that’s Christmas to me.

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We grew up doing the same thing for almost every holiday, every year. I came to love Christmases and Easters and Thanksgivings with family–nine of us cousins running around, thick as thieves. There was always an Easter egg hunt in the springtime, always puzzles and dinner and Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, and Gramma sleeping over to welcome Santa with us in the morning.

I loved our traditions and stuck to them like glue. I didn’t know growing up that I was so attached to our family routines, but looking back, the patterns every year were comfortable and settling for my heart.

I grieved them for a long time after they dissipated, one by one.

For the past few years, we’ve welcomed Christmas in the little blue house, trying to create traditions of our own and to make things familiar for Henry and Eloise as they grow. We have all come to love Christmas morning around our own tree. Now, new memories of Christmases past are starting to stack up…Henry always peeking around the corner into the living room with a squeal of excitement, and this year, bringing his sister along with him, too.

I love these new images lingering in my mind, but they still haven’t replaced the parts of Christmas I’ve missed. I think the associations I have with the holidays from my younger years made it really hard for anything else to match up for a long time.

In a redemptive way though now, having our own children is giving me fresh eyes at Christmastime again–especially as the kiddos get a little bit older and can really enjoy all aspects of our own holiday traditions, visits, meals and surprises. And suddenly this time around, in the middle of multiple celebrations that will carry us into 2016, I’m realizing that our little family of four has a sweetness to it at this time of year that’s becoming Christmas to me.

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This is a graceful part of December I didn’t know to expect. I just didn’t see it coming.

Sometimes it’s really, really hard to let go of the past in honor of the future. There’s beauty in having memories to treasure…they just have to take their rightful place.

I’ve realized that holidays past can either rob the ones we’re trying to enjoy now, or they can inspire us toward future hope and joy. Somehow, gracefully, life is currently affording me the latter.

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When I think back to my growing up years, the longing that lingers the most is wanting make my Gramma proud and to do things in a way that would bless her and bring her joy. After all this time, I can finally see that the Christmases we’re celebrating as a family now would delight her just as much as they’re delighting me. And maybe even more.

Thinking back and looking forward,

molly madonna

 

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graceful is.

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Graceful is a lingering Christmas with family and friends.

Graceful is having nowhere to go when the weather outside is frightful, and finding the time to watch a wintry mix make artwork on the windows instead.

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Graceful is delight on our children’s faces at every turn…laughter and smiles and extra hugs in pajamas all day long.

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Food on the table.

A cup of hot tea.

Snuggles with babies when they’re not feeling well.

An extra hour of sleep.

A prayer. Silent, spoken, offered up.

A hot shower.

Warm clothes to wear.

Laundry to wash.

Storytime.

Games and laughter after the kids go to bed.

Daddy home for a long string of days and a “weekend time!” that stretches out generously into the New Year.

Graceful is this time of year, when everything ordinary still happens, but it sets itself down amidst the extraordinary and miraculous that doesn’t always linger as palpably outside of Christmas.

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Graceful is right where we are, when we open our eyes to both ordinary and extraordinary, when we open our hands in thanksgiving, and when we offer our hearts to each other. 

Graceful is everywhere we are infusing grace, and anywhere we are receiving it.

Let’s keep finding it together,

molly madonna

 

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heart check.

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A friend of ours spoke in church this morning, and his message hit home for me. To paraphrase as succinctly as possible, his challenge was to ask ourselves whether we’re pursuing our own comfort or our calling. I suppose this is a question we can ask ourselves daily, if not all day long. I can, for sure.

As a parent, the opportunities to choose between my own comfort and my calling begin at the earliest hour and end late into the night. On some nights—like those we’ve had in recent days, the choice is readily available around the clock. Am I attentive to the needs of our children, my husband and our household day in and day out, or do I choose to be self-seeking and consider my own comfort first? The true answer, for better or for worse, is both.

I get to decide whether I’m going to let comfort or calling dictate my choices and my life’s direction, even before my feet hit the floor in the morning. 

Today’s message was timely as I sat in the pew with a notecard and pencil, writing out single words in a list as they came to me. With the new year just five days away, I’ve been thinking about a word to commit to the coming year as a focus for my head and heart. I’ve done this now for the past several years, and I’ve discovered that it really works as a way for me to ground myself in a particular theme or direction.

I was writing my list of potential words mid-message, because I often find myself especially connected to what God is doing in my life when I can take the same vantage point from our Sunday morning pew. Maybe it’s because we’ve just been focused in worship, or because I’m surrounded by some of the people I love the most. Whatever the catalyst, I value the chance to capture my thoughts on paper in these moments, so I don’t forget the ways that God is moving in my heart and spirit.

As I considered comfort versus calling and how I want to order my life in the next calendar year, my list of word candidates grew and grew. It will be a joy and a challenge to flesh out which of them takes a defining role as I try to steward my time, relationships and responsibilities well in 2016.

In years past, I’ve found direction in words like grow, embrace, rooted and most recently in 2015, intention. Naturally, I never know as I head into a year exactly what it will bring, and it’s always a stretching and sanctifying process to commit to a theme and then watch it take shape. Intention was a hard one for me this past year, but so beautiful, too. And I feel like I’ve grown in the practice of living on purpose as a result. I hope I can continue to do so, and to build on the foundation of intention as the next year unfolds.

Comfort versus calling. What will we do in 2016 that moves us closer to our calling and more fully into who we’re meant to be?

How will we change the world by changing our worlds, first?

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excited for what’s to come!

molly madonna

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let’s not just let it go.

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As with any big event, Christmas comes with so much preparation, ramping up and expectation. Not unlike a wedding day, a big birthday, or a move off to college, the days to follow arrive quickly, as though someone has pulled the celebratory rug out from under us and left us on the bare floor, wondering how on earth it all came and went so fast. At least, that’s how I’ve felt a time or two or twenty.

Today, things are quiet in our house. Jason is away until dinner time, and Henry and Eloise mostly just want to play with their favorite new things. It’s been gray here, and colder, with a drizzly rain that halted any plans of a walk before nap time. The house is resting, and I would be, too, but I’m thinking about yesterday and what comes between now and New Year’s, and how I want to prepare myself to head into 2016 with a hopeful perspective for whatever will take shape when I swap out the calendar.

I don’t mind the idea of a fresh start, especially at the tail end of a bang-up year. There has been a lot of good to go along with the bad, but there’s plenty I’m content to put behind us, too. I’ll be there and ready in a little shy of a week when the clock strikes midnight. I’m just not there quite yet.

The tree is still up (and will be a while longer) and the lights are still warming up the room as I type. New Christmas gifts arrived from Gramma today, and I’m thankful for how they’ll draw out the magic of Christmas just a little bit longer under all of the ornaments, not quite ready to be put back in their boxes for next eleven months.

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I know some are so eager to “pack up Christmas” and put it away. Nothing wrong with that, I suppose, but I do like it to linger. I like that, for a few days at least, the whole world around me seems to carry with it an awareness–a sensitivity to being softer, kinder, more generous, more present with one another and the needs of friends and strangers, alike.

It’s as though Christmas shines a light on the fact that we’re all human, and we seem to remember this better while we all unite in an effort to usher in Christmas, however different our individual celebrations may be.

I’m not ready to let go of Christmas just yet. When something changes you for good, you don’t want it to end.

When Jesus was born, Christmas was only just beginning as the wisemen traveled from afar to bring gifts to the baby King. They didn’t arrive in just a few hours, but journeyed long days to meet their Savior and to offer of themselves, in person, to Him.

Celebrating a graceful December this year is challenging me to seek out ways to carry out Christmas, right into the New Year. With the twelve days of Christmas in full swing and Epiphany not until January 6th, I figure I have the perfect reason not to let it all go just yet (as if anyone needed justification for more of Christmas :)!

Let’s not let sale shopping and gift exchanging, end of year busyness and “putting away” our holiday decor get in the way of continuing to extend ourselves to friends, family and strangers. Then, the light that has poured so freely into our lives this past week will shine brightly over the normal days on our calendars, too.

How can I extend Christmas and light to those in my sphere of influence these next few days? How can you?

Embracing the good,

molly madonna

 

 

 

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a grace-full Christmas.

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Earlier this week, I was putting Henry to bed and having one of our usual, long, night time chats when he almost started to cry.

“I just never have any Christmas dreams. I only have bad dreams lately. I never have Christmas dreams or dreams about Jesus, and I want to have dreams about Jesus because he’s a really good guy!”

I asked Henry whether I could pray over him before bed, that God would grant him peaceful rest and good dreams, and we prayed together as my big little guy turned over and settled down into sleep.

Isn’t this a picture of what we’re all feeling, just days before Christmas? We don’t want to have the bad dreams, the hardest moments, the scary things–especially when we’re trying to celebrate the most beautiful things instead. The beauty of Christmas and the peace of Jesus are so much more our heart’s desire. Maybe four year olds just have a way of seeing what we all feel way down deep and do not say.

It’s hard when we don’t control all circumstances, and when the things we want feel out of reach. More of Jesus would be so much better, and he is…but in the midst of life and busyness and stress and unrest, how do we find Him?

Today is set apart, because on Christmas, we know where much of the world is looking, and we can look, too. We turn our attention to Bethlehem, the manger, the virgin girl searching for Jesus right with us, even as she gives birth to Him in a lowly stable. We sing the songs that tell and retell the story, we light our candles, we break bread together around the table, we open gifts.

And the love that was poured out on the night of Christ’s birth pushes through the hard and the hurting, even if only for a moment.

This is the gift that remains long after the tree has been put away…the one handed to all of us, whether there’s a box anywhere with our name on it at all. At Christmas, we look and long and maybe even cry out, and the tiny hand of a newborn baby reaches out and offers hopeful grace for the days to come.

I’ve spent a lot of time asking God to guide me into a pattern graceful living this month, knowing that on my own, I might be hard pressed to find the rhythm. And it has been much harder than I’d like to admit most days, and I’ve had to battle more than I imagined to truly get to a space of living gracefully instead of hastily.

Christmas does not bring out the best in all of us when we’re feeling so pressed to keep up and show up (and sometimes, one up). The “Christmas spirit” has often felt more to me like striving and achieving and less like just arriving and believing. I’ve had to fend off all of the things I think I want for all of the good that God has for me, instead. It’s easy to get confused…it’s so easy to be human and forget about the divine.

I suppose I’ve felt a bit like Henry as this Christmas Day came closer. I found myself in the middle of things I didn’t want, when I was craving Christmas and that “really good guy,” Jesus, in my heart.

So I asked Him. I asked to be reminded of the graceful in this season. I asked for slowed down moments and the ability to stop myself in places where I needed more air and less perfection. Arriving at today felt like a marathon, but the good, stretching, growing kind where you PR in the end and have sure footing at the finish line.

This morning, Henry woke up excited as he shouted “Merry Christmas!” from his bed and anxiously awaited the house rising from sleep and into this long-awaited Christmas Day. He was in such a contagiously good mood. And he told me right away as if top of mind, “Mom! I had a Christmas dream! I dreamed that me and Eloise and our cousins were all together, and it was Christmas morning!!!” I couldn’t help but remember our conversation from a few short days ago, and that prayer we offered up to God together, in expectation for what He would do.

Christmas is a season of expectation, and I think it’s a matter of how we set that expectation that makes the difference. Today was imperfect by some standards…nearly all of our family was far away, Eloise had a fever, I didn’t get brunch on the table until 1pm. But it was perfect in this: after days of praying that my heart could be set on graceful living in this Christmas season, God has faithfully shown me where “graceful” resides, all day long.

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Graceful is acknowledging the imperfect and finding the joy anyway. Graceful is a tiny reprieve from a heavy burden. Graceful is a walk in the sunshine in Christmas pajamas at 2pm and Face Time conversations with people we love. Graceful is unplanned and utterly welcome guests. It’s putting down agendas for the sake of others, saying “yes” when “no” feels easier and saying “no” when “yes” is past our limitations. Graceful is what we find when we look to God and ask for help, and He sends us a Savior in the form of a helpless babe.

I am so thankful for this Christmas that has taught me so much about loving and living–in and through and in spite of feelings and circumstances. Tonight, I’ll head to bed early, heart full, stomach full, house full, grace full. I hope that wherever you are and however you’ve spent it, this day has left you full in all of the good ways, too.

Sweet dreams, and Merry Christmas.

molly madonna