Christmas | Pedestrian God

The Empty Closet: Life After Our First Placement

Dec 07 2017

An empty closet.
Clothes hangers without clothes.
A gap in the pews.
A booster seat in the trunk of the car.

I’ve cried at the sight of each of these items over the past two weeks. Our foster placement lived with us for 380 days. Today is day 16 without her. We’re still emotionally rebounding from the way her time with us ended – not in celebration of reunification or adoption but in grief. In a gut-wrenching hope that the pain from her placement with a new foster family will bring the help and healing she needs.

There’s a pain mingling with our holiday celebrations this year. And as I looked around the pews at church this past Sunday morning, I was reminded we weren’t alone. There was pain all around me:
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Christmas Traditions: Books

Dec 23 2015

Merry Christmas! As we count down the final hours to Christmas Day, I wanted to share one more fantastic Christmas tradition with you.

This one comes from the Preston family and I’ll let Stacy Preston’s own words explain how it works:

Advent Calendar

Dec 17 2015

The ladies at our church gathered together to make Advent Calendars together and I love them! I met with one sweet family in our church to take a picture of their daughter as she happily placed all the pieces on the felt and explained what each one was.

A Christmas Candlelight Drama

Dec 11 2015

I’m very excited to share this fun Christmas tradition with you. It comes all the way from a lovely family, the Tarletons, serving the Lord in Texas. Sarah Tarleton and I met in college at Union University and though we haven’t seen each other in years, we’ve been able to stay connected through social media.

Adam and Sarah Tarleton have four children under the age of six and have made the decision not to put unnecessary pressure on themselves to start fantastically complicated Christmas traditions. Rather, they keep it simple and keep the focus on Christ.

This Christmas Drama tradition began when Sarah was a teenager. It’s a way of visually presenting the Christmas story with candles and a short script that alternates between Scripture and carols. Every year on Christmas Eve, no matter who is in their house visiting, their family gathers around their dining room table.

Book Review: Advent in Narnia

Dec 04 2015

Welcome to December! The focus of the blog will be a bit different this month. I’m going to highlight how various families keep Christ the center of Christmas this month. You’ll love some of these great ideas, especially if you’re a parent of “littles” looking to start new traditions.

Today, we’ll start our Advent season with a book review on Advent in Narnia: Reflections for the Season by Heidi Haverkamp. This 96 page book serves as a reader’s companion to The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis. It consists of four weeks of reflections, each week with 7 days. It even tells you which chapter to read along with in Lewis’ book.

I was searching for a great Christmas book to share with you and stumbled on this one. On the whole, I am a huge fan. It would work great as a family guide. I can see families sitting around the Christmas tree, reading part of Narnia and part of the Reflections every evening.

Category - Christmas

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