“The people walking in darkness have seen a great LIGHT…” Isaiah 9:2a

We are a few days into Advent. Are you feeling overwhelmed with everything on your to do list? Are you already a little “behind” in the plan you had in place to achieve with your kids or personally this month? Maybe you want to cut back but you don’t know what to cut out… All the events, activities, and “plans” seem so wonderful!

Something Randy and I try to do is cast a vision for our family at the start of each school year. This allows us to set goals and helps us decide what events, extra curriculars, and other things are doable. Does it fit into our family vision? If not, we don’t do it. This year’s vision is all about rest and family togetherness. We are allowing ourselves to learn what it means to be a family of seven (!) without a lot of outside pressures. So when the busy season hit, we had to pick and choose which things encouraged rest and family closeness and what didn’t.

This Advent, we are using Truth in the Tinsel from Amanda White (ohamanda.com) which encourages a simple craft to go along with a scripture reading everyday for the month of December, and we have our family Advent wreath which we light each Sunday and read scripture and sing a hymn together. This may seem like a lot, maybe the opposite of rest to some; but trust me when I say we’ve stripped away many other things. These activities just happen to be the “big rocks” in our jar. Everything else is the sand that falls in between.

I sincerely hope you are not feeling weighed down by all the options and stressed from all the running around. Advent means waiting, anticipating; after all. How can we do that if we’re busy doing all. the. things??? (Spoiler alert: you can’t.) But I also encourage you to find some way to shed LIGHT on the true meaning of Christmas in your home. Decide what your “big rocks” are and let everything else fall away. You’ll be happy you did!

Pics from getting and trimming our tree, always a good time and my favorite way to celebrate my birthday…