Welcome to the Joy of Advent!

 
 

How can I express my gratitude for you?

I’m so thankful that you’re here, preparing your heart for one of the most meaningful seasons of the year. 

Our world is brimming with beauty, miracle, mystery for which we have no complete explanation. All I need to do is glance out my front window where a maple glows with gold and a tinge of red. While we can explain the science behind chlorophyl’s summer green and the revelation of a leaf’s inner beauty as the greenness dies away, we can’t explain why that beauty exists. 

 

Our world is brimming with beauty, miracle, mystery.

We can’t explain why beauty so moves our hearts.

 

Likewise, many of us have spent our entire lives with Christmas…

hearing stories of Jesus born and laid in a manger. But how often do we forget the true mysteriousness and miraculousness of that single event?

 

Stephen and I (see our About page to learn more about us!) have two missions for this website.

 

1. We want to gift you with resources

Our goal is to overwhelm you with gifts!

We want this website to overflow with inspiration, resources, ideas that you can use to make your celebration of the Advent season more meaningful.

We’ll have everything from recipes and DIY crafts to insights into the traditions that have become synomous with our contemporary experience of Christmas.

Our library (vault? treasure trove?) is always expanding, so please keep checking back!

I may be called the Christmas Chick by some, but I absolutely can’t make every craft, sing every song, watch every movie, read every book. So we invite you to share your traditions with us. Many will appear here for all to enojy! Find out more about how you can be part of the Joy of Advent.

 

2. We want you to have the most meaningful Advent ever

With that goal in mind, we developed a daily Celebration that run from December 1st to the feast of the Epiphany on January 6th. We’ve been using the readings, artwork, and carefully selected songs for years in our own home, and now we offer them to you. For two years the readings came as an email subscription. Now they’re a book!

To compliment the book, we created a daily email subscription with art, carols, resources and more. In the true spirit of Christmas, this subscription is entirely and completely free.

What Are the Joy of Advent Daily Celebrations?

I’m so glad you asked! The readings in Joy of Advent: Family Celebrations for Advent and the Twelve Days of Christmas are built around the tradition of the Jesse Tree, something I discovered when my older children were tiny babies (circa early 2000s!).

Few resources existed then, and none went all the way through the 12 Days of Christmas (more on the 12 Days of Christmas here), so I set about writing my own.

 

Each day is centered on a Biblical person or event, and begins with Scripture.

A reflection encourages you to think deeply about your experience of Advent.

Also included are inspiring works of art and carefully selected music in all genres, from traditional to comtempoary.

 

Will you Join us in celebrating the Joy of Advent?

Discover the Joy of Advent

Would you like to receive our daily, entirely free subscriber-exclusive, Joy of Advent Readings throughout the Advent and Christmas seasons?


 
 

Rebecca Grabill

Rebecca has been writing since childhood, her first book about a kitten published between homemade cardboard covers in second grade. Although she studied religion and philosophy in university, she continued writing, earning an MFA from Hamline University and publishing multiple picture books (no longer with homemade covers) and a collection of poetry with a variety of New York and independent publishers. She has also published a wide array of fiction, essays, and poetry in magazines and journals and photographs for Getty Images. She balances writing with homeschooling the younger of her six children, launching her young adults, church activities, and overseeing a small flock of chickens in rural West Michigan.

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