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.
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.