Quiet Time

The week between Christmas and New Year’s continues its reign on my personal list of all-time favorite weeks of the year. Since our first years of marriage, my husband’s company ‘closes up shop’ the week after Christmas, beginning a tradition in our lives in which we ourselves could also slow down for a short amount of time. We were lucky that both sets of our parents lived in Houston within 10 minutes’ driving time between them, so we never had to travel over the holidays; all our siblings made their way to us!

As our three girls entered elementary school, middle school, and then high school, that week after Christmas signaled a season of no schedules, comfy clothes and no make-up, having time to spend on a project that was calling our name, and staying up late watching movies or re-runs of favorite TV shows. I continue to look forward to this week because the frenetic pace of the holidays from Thanksgiving to Christmas Day suddenly eases up; for a few days I am no longer running from one event to the next, planning menus, decorating the house, getting lights up outside because I don’t want to have the only house on my block without lights, shopping for gifts that I hope I can find in town, which means braving Houston holiday shopping traffic, and if that fails, having to resort to Amazon, USPS, or Fed Ex!

I tend to think of this less busy week as my own version of Advent. During the season of Advent, our very busy culture makes it difficult to simply ‘be in a moment’ rather than zip from one task to another or ‘doing something.’ Advent is a period of anticipation as we await the birth of Christ, a time that is joyful as well as quiet. We are asked to be still, to notice what is happening in our own hearts as we focus on the peace within us while waiting for the birth of our Lord. Even though Advent ends on Christmas Day, we can continue this peaceful, quiet time well into the next week, enabling us to embrace the new year, which will bring its own changes, ups and downs, twists and turns, and stretches of smooth sailing; in other words, we will experience life.

God knows when we need to stop, take a deep breath, and slow down. Grab that moment when you feel it and give thanks to God for knowing what we need when sometimes we don’t know it ourselves.