I love a good story. I love great film and television. I’m a terrible reader when it comes to fiction, but I love the beautiful narrative of biographies and non-fiction. Try to imagine something…and I struggle, but real people in real history, I’m hooked.
Most of us find that we love a good story. We always have. This is why people sat around fires sharing stories of the past, why we love when older family members tell the tales of when they were young, why we are often drawn to incredible stories based on actual events, why we love to get together with old friends and retell that time that one thing happened.
We spent Thanksgiving in Missouri. We got to see family and long time friends. Our trip began with sunny warm weather where we were throwing the football around outside in shorts and t-shirts…let’s be honest, my kids only wear shorts…so this doesn’t seem to properly express the beauty and warmth of a Kansas City fall day…and then not many days later, our trip ended with 3 inches of snow in St. Louis. It was a beautiful time with people we love.
Between that first and last day, there were a lot of dark overcast days. It is inevitable this time of year, especially in the midwest.
If you were at worship yesterday, I shared that Sarah’s Aunt and Uncle send Advent gifts every year to hang on a homemade calendar that we proudly display in our house. Each year Sarah’s Aunt Linda and Uncle John send these gifts that we tie to each one of the corresponding numbers, we video our kids opening the gifts, and send the videos to Aunt Linda and Uncle John. It’s a really fun thing to go back through our phone to the same date in previous years and see how much our boys have changed, see how different Sarah and my ever changing hair is, and all the different places we’ve lived in the past 11 years.
Did you know winter doesn’t begin on November 1st. Or on Black Friday. Or on December 1st. The first day of winter begins on a day called the winter solstice or midwinter. This date is either December 21st or 22nd. That day, right before Christmas is the day winter technically begins.
