Advent

Okay, I have decided in a very after-the-fact choice to start a weekly Advent series.

This is a surprisingly little-celebrated holiday.  "What's the point?", I often asked as a child.  "Jesus has already come; why celebrate a holiday, waiting for Him to come?"

Aside from the fact that we are waiting for His return, I've noticed something about what Satan has done to this time of year... He has conveniently made it the busiest, most stressful time of year for everyone:

Finals, 

pageants, 

parties, 

shopping, 

cleaning,

cooking, 

rehearsals, 

projects, 

extra church services...

The Jewish people have a tradition of welcoming the Sabbath every week with the lighting of candles, singing of songs, saying of prayers, and eating of food.  We call this the Shabbat dinner, and, just in case you had any doubts left about it, it's just like in Fiddler on the Roof:

It occurred to me Advent is a time that the Christians can come incredibly close to having this tradition of peace reinstated into their religion, for, during Shabbat, we leave our worries in the week; we step away from all Satan has heaped onto us.

I would like to encourage you and your family to take at least one night a week to celebrate Advent.  Many families would do things with Advent Calendars, but we never did (at least not that I remember... I'm sure my mom will be on here soon, correcting me... go ahead, Mom).  Rather, we would traditionally would open by singing O Come, All Ye Faithful and lighting the candles, followed by prayer and then the family's requests for various songs.  To this day, I cannot hear the song without smelling the smoke of a freshly lit candle.  Traditions are good.  Traditions help families and faiths stay strong.  I'd encourage you to start some traditions of your own.

That being said, I'm getting to the part of this post that you will find reoccurring in this series... sorry the introduction took so long (In fact, I'm going to make a new post for that).  Here in Korea, we've started our own Advent celebrations, and I wanted to share some with you, as a guide in case you still are running short on activities for your family.  Unfortunately, this means that you will not get our materials in time for a Sunday celebration, as we are celebrating on Mondays, but hey... I'm sure G-d won't mind.

Oh... still confused?  Click the title of this post.

<3

I feel loved!

Okay, so, I live in this crazy cyber-stalk-y world, where Facebook keeps track of who I talk to the most, and will even automatically stalk them for me so I don't feel like a creeper.  Well, Blogspot makes me go out of the way to check on such things, but it still automatically tracks the locations of people coming to check out my blog.

Now, some of you found your way here because my cousin David just married the lovely and beautiful Sarah, and that's okay... I don't blame you for checking out my blog on account of them.  They're amazing people and I would cyber-stalk them too (and do... no worries!). ;)

Some of your way here by Googling my name... clearly you are interested in ME... thanks. ;)

Some of you somehow managed upon my pictures of Korea while looking for beautiful scenery.

(See how creep-tastic this is??)

Some of you are from Germany, and this makes me happy, because I still miss Germany and KiA deeply, and I'm hoping to be able to come visit sometime in the upcoming months.  (You hear that, Phil?)


It didn't surprise me to find the USA in 1st place for blog hits.
It didn't surprise me to find South Korea in 2nd.
What DID surprise me was when I found that Russia was in 3rd (closely followed by Germany).

Therefore... my Russian friend(s):
I'd love to hear from you... are you thinking of coming to Korea?  Do my late night ramblings entertain you?  Do you just adore my cousin and his wife, too (really, I couldn't blame you for that)?  haha... no pressure there... just wanted to say: I love you too!!!

<3

Sorry if I just creeped y'all out there.  I just thought I'd illustrate this point a little... BUT... I do like the option, because it really does make me feel loved. :)