We had a simple, stripped down Christmas this year. (Thank goodness.) But I did attempt some baking. Last year, a friend gave me some house-shaped cake molds.
One of the houses came out cleanly:
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| Gluten-free gingerbread cake with chopped candied ginger and powdered sugar snow. |
The other one. . .less so. At which point, it was 11 p.m. on Christmas Eve, and I decided that the only logical thing was to attempt to glue it together with cream cheese frosting.
Remember how I said that I don't bake much? The last time I had tried to make frosting, it went flat as a lake and turned into glaze. ("How can you mess up frosting? There must have been something wrong with the sugar," my mother said. Sure, let's go with that.) But this time, it actually became frosting, so I'm marking that as a success.
I knew the second house wasn't remotely pretty, but I was still a little shocked when Mom said, "Oh, what a cute chimney."
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| That's a tree, Mom. Obviously. |
This year, my church's Advent sermon series was titled "Simply Jesus." I wrote a poem for the series that was handed out at our five o'clock service.
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| A small Christmas gift to the other members of Gateway Fellowship. |
I realize that (unless you are Orthodox) we are well into the post-Christmas season now, but I've included the poem below for those who are curious.
Simply Christmas
Don’t
misunderstand, I love
the
ridiculous ritual
of it all:
the maudlin movies, the bell-song,
the scent of
cinnamon and cloves, the way everything
is red and
green and glitter
until your
eyes water. The trouble
lies under
the glitz and the gilt,
near the
core of Christmas: a human poverty, the empty ache
that called
the riches of Heaven
down to
earth. The trouble is I know
there will
never be enough
in my
checkbook to give
the people I
love the gifts they need most.
So the ache
in me prays for the ache you:
May you
receive a spark of courage
to light the
woods ahead of you
in dark
months. May you find a peace
to wrap
around your head like an oversized
scarf,
blocking out the cold and anxious wind.
May you
maintain that stubborn flame of joy
we find in
the Beatitudes: “happy are. . .
the poor in
spirit, the ones who mourn, the meek,
the
merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers,
and the
persecuted.” May all your God-given hungers—
for food,
for safety and shelter, for love, for justice, and for family—
be filled.
May you find your people this year,
your place
of belonging, and may you discover
forgiveness
for those who once ignored your worth.
May your
heart not just be a cup
waiting to
be filled, but a channel
that spills
into the thirsty world. May you give
as you have
received. And may the gift
that stays
the closest to your
heart be the
one that first arrived
without
receipt or ribbon, tagged
for the
world God so loved
with
Heaven’s brightest beam and wrapped,
by human
hands, in simple
swaddling
cloth.
Love-Love-Love! :)
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