Connecting the Dots: December

Or: how many times can I use the word "Christmas" in one post?

Dec 20, 2024

brown wooden table — Photo by Greyson Joralemon on Unsplash

Every night in December we go through the same routine—after dinner, before bath time, I open my Bible while my three-year-old goes to the cabinet under the tv and pulls out two advent calendars, one for her and one for our dog. I steal a glance at our Advent reading plan, framed and sitting on the side table, to find the verse for the day and read out of Luke or John or Isaiah. She may be only three, but I want to make sure she has at least a basic understanding of what we’ve read, so I ask a comprehension question or two to make sure she’s following along.1 Even at a young age, she’s learned the cardinal rule of church goers everywhere—when in doubt, the right answer is always “Jesus”.

After our two minute “devotional”, she tears into the calendars. Luke helps her identify the number corresponding to the date and she retrieves a chocolate for herself and a treat for Louie. The whole ordeal lasts no more than five minutes. Blink, and you could miss it.

One night last week, Luke and I were preparing to go to dinner with some friends and my parents came over to babysit. After I put the finishing touches on my outfit, I emerged from our bedroom ready to go through our ritual before we left, only to learn they had all completed it without me. I hadn’t been primping for long, I had stuck my head out just a few minutes earlier, but that’s how low key the process really is.

Some nights I feel as though we should be doing more, not that I know what “more” would look like with a three year old. Some nights the ritual feels just right, though, and it reminds me how Jesus doesn’t require the pomp and circumstance the world demands. In fact, this season is about remembering how humble and lowly His entrance to this world was. Born on a silent night beneath the stars, God sent the Savior of the world as a tiny baby, wrapped in cloth and laid in a manger. His birth was but a whisper. Luke 2:7 describes it this way:

Then she gave birth to her firstborn son, and she wrapped him tightly in cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.

The impact of His unassuming birth has been highlighted even more for me this year as I’ve been studying Revelation. In Revelation, Jesus is no longer depicted as a baby or even a man, but chapter 1, verses 14-16 tell us:

The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength.

This is the Jesus of today. This is Jesus in His full glory. When I put the descriptions side by side, I am humbled by His choice to leave heaven and dwell with us on earth. While He didn’t forfeit His Godliness to become human, He did leave the majesty of heaven behind for the brokenness of earth.

His decision leaves me with a decision of my own this Christmas—to stop and be humbled by His presence and remember the reason we celebrate, or to ignore Him and continue on with the hustle and bustle of December. Each night, we choose to reorient our hearts toward the one who created them, drowning out the constant noise clamoring for our attention. A whisper can be easy to miss, but those few minutes we spend together gathered around the Bible help us to recognize the sound of His voice so it becomes familiar and trusted in our ears. Those few minutes open our eyes to how the whisper of His first coming is but a foretaste of the roar of His second coming.

This post is part of a blog hop with Exhale—an online community of women pursuing creativity alongside motherhood, led by the writing team behind Coffee + Crumbs. Click here to view the next post in the series "Whisper."

I normally send out these Connecting the Dots posts the last Friday of every month, but in order to send out a Connecting the Dots: 2024 post before the new year, I’m rounding up my December favorites a little early. Read on for more of what I’m reading, watching, cooking, loving, and practicing this month.

Reading Roundup

Okay, truth be told, I haven’t finished this book yet, but I wanted to include it here because I’m more than halfway through and it feels like the buzziest book of the year.

I’ve had The Anxious Generation on my nightstand since August, but knew it was going to be a hefty undertaking, so it took me awhile to dive in. I started listening on Libby to get me started and didn’t get through it in time, so I’ll finish reading the print version.

Apart from its heft, another reason I didn’t dive right in was because I didn’t want a guilt trip. Most days, raising a toddler looks like just doing the best you can and I didn’t want to feel called out for letting her watch tv while she eats breakfast in the mornings.

Halfway in, though, and no guilt trips have been had. This book is less about the effects of “screen time” and more about how we are overprotecting kids in the real world and under protecting them in the virtual world (the virtual world being social media and multiplayer video games and the like). It’s been a fascinating look at how we got here, starting with Gen Z—the first generation with unrestricted access to the Internet during childhood.

I’m thankful to read this before being at a point in parenthood where I have to make these decisions, social media is still far off for us, but it definitely presents food for thought for how my daughter can have more of a play based childhood than phone based childhood.

You guys. I wanted so badly to like this book. It was heralded as a cozy mystery set against a snowy, remote English countryside at Christmas with an enemies to lovers trope. What’s not to love?

Everything.

This felt like three books in one, like it couldn’t quite figure out what it wanted to be. I only powered through because I used my last Book of the Month credit and I didn’t want it to be a total waste, but let me save you some time/money/credits and lead you away from this one. How it has over 4 stars on every platform is truly beyond me, but don’t be fooled. If you’ve already read this, though, I want to know if you agree or disagree.

Entertainment Honorable Mentions

December is almost exclusively reserved for Christmas movies in my world. Growing up, I spent every night from Thanksgiving until Christmas Eve watching these movies with my dad. He is a man of few words and even fewer displays of emotion, but come Thanksgiving Eve and he lights up like a Christmas tree at the prospect of watching Christmas movies every night. While I can’t watch movies with him every night like I used to, we still kick of the season by watching his VHS copy of Miracle on 34th St. (the 1947 colored version) every Thanksgiving Eve. Since the movie starts with the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade, it only makes sense to usher in Christmas this way.

In addition to the other classics, this year I’ve delved into the world of Netflix Christmas movies. I’ve never gotten on board with Hallmark Christmas movies (I know, some of you have big feelings about these), but the Netflix movies have better production value and are taking advantage of 👸 Lindsay Lohan, so I’m in. Our Little Secret was cute and funny and exactly what I needed in a low stakes, rom-com Christmas movie.

Luke and I also watched Carry On, a Christmas centric thriller following the story of a TSA agent (Taron Egerton) who is blackmailed by a mysterious traveller (Jason Bateman) into allowing a dangerous carry on to pass through airport security. This movie was made for those who ascribe to the Die Hard is my favorite Christmas movie mindset, which isn’t me, but it was a good one to watch with Luke and an interesting deviation from overly saccharine Christmas movies.

Speaking of deviations from the norm, aside from Housewives (which are all delivering right now), the only other non-Christmas show I’ve watched this month was Jamie Foxx’s stand up special, What Had Happened Was, where Foxx details, in his own words, what exactly happened during his “mystery illness”. This was an emotional first hand account of his experience and while I’m by no means a Jamie Foxx super fan, it was still an interesting watch to see how he wove humor and heart into his story telling.

What’s Cooking

Fear not, my cookbook game is still going strong, but I have been returning to a few tried and true recipes I have saved on Instagram.

Carochambers sheet-pan gnocchi with roasted tomatoes, kale, sausage meatballs, and burrata is SO easy and SO delicious. Every time I make it, I’m surprised by how fast it comes together and how wonderful it tastes. Perfect for this time of year when you’re short on time but don’t want to skimp on a home cooked meal.

Another fave is cheesegal’s spicy rigatoni alla vodka. I’m a sucker for pasta alla vodka and this recipe is… chef’s kiss. It’s also really easy to deconstruct for kids—I make the vodka sauce for us and yummytoddlerfood’s butternut squash cheese sauce for my daughter (I sub pumpkin puree for butternut squash).

Gadgets and Gizmos Aplenty

A few months ago, my sister-in-law unexpectedly gave me a Nespresso machine someone had gifted her. She never used it and figured I might. I was elated to receive such an extravagant gift. After deliberating the ~many~ pod options, I decided to order a flavored sample pack to try. They were…not great. But because pods aren’t exactly cheap, I didn’t order more because I didn’t want to waste anymore money on something I may or may not like.

Fast forward to the beginning of December when my family and I found ourselves at a mall with a Nespresso store and time to kill. We wandered inside and while I’m pretty sure they were supposed to offer samples but did not, the lady working behind the counter was able to recommend a flavor to me based on my described preferences. I walked away with both a regular and decaf box of melozio pods and I’m happy to report they are perfection. With the addition of frothed milk, I truly feel like I’m drinking coffeeshop level lattes at home and repurchasing pods doesn’t feel as frivolous because I know I’ll drink them and go to Starbucks less. Here’s to more at home lattes in 2025!

While December is synonymous with Christmas and presents and hot chocolate, it’s also synonymous with colds and flu and tissues. My whole life, I’ve always seemed to get an upper respiratory infection of some kind right around Christmas and it’s the worst. This year, however, I discovered Breathe Right Strips for the first time and holy moly, why am I so late to the game? I put one of the strips on like I would a Bioré strip but instead of extracting my blackheads, it extracted my need to mouth breathe and blow my nose all night long. I don’t love the way cold medicine makes me feel, it often feels like I’m trading one set of symptoms for another, so having a non-pharmacological form of intervention is a huge win when it comes to cold and flu season.

This contender is coming in right under the wire because it’s a new-to-me nail trend I just tried out yesterday. When I went to the nail salon, I saw they were offering cat eye nails. My friend Brooke, who has the best taste, had a version of cat eye nails when I saw her in November, and I loved them, so when I saw my salon was now offering them, I was delighted. If you’re unfamiliar, like I was, this is a gel polish on top of a dip base coat. The gel contains tiny magnetic particles and when the magnetic tool is held above your nails, the gel is attracted to the magnet, allow it to be manipulated into different shape or design. TBH, I’m sure having magnetic particles on my nails isn’t the ~best~ practice, but they feel fun and festive for this time of year, so I’m not going to overanalyze it.2

Last year, unable to part with my daughter’s darling first pair of boots and unsure what to do with the paw print the vet made of our beloved cat after he passed, I decided to turn them into ornaments. Luke drilled tiny holes and I strung a piece of wire through and voila! We had ornaments! I did the same thing this year with my daughter’s first pair of ballet shoes and it brings me endless joy to see these artifacts on display instead of tossed aside or rotting away in a box. The best part of doing this with shoes is that we put one on our family tree and one on her tree so when she grows up, she can take one with her and we’ll have one of our own. It’s a win win for everyone. If you’re looking for a way to repurpose meaningful family treasures, might I suggest giving this a try?

Practice Makes Perfect

I already mentioned at the top of this post how we are practicing Advent in our home. We use this calendar that we got from church last year.3 It truly does only take a few minutes, which is perfect for this stage of life. Maybe next year we’ll be ready for something a little more advanced.

Another tradition we started last year is taking a Polaroid picture every day in December until Christmas. With all the tradition options swirling around Instagram, it’s easy to feel like yours aren’t good enough4, which is why I love the simplicity of this one. The only prerequisite is for me to remember to bring the Polaroid camera if I want to take a picture out of the house and remembering to reload the film when we get to the end.

The pictures themselves don’t have to be fancy, they just have to document how we spent our days leading up to Christmas. My daughter loves the process of the photo developing and I love the way it adds intention to my day, forcing me to stop and notice the small moments.

However you spend these next few days before Christmas, I hope you, too, are able to stop and notice the small moments. The whispers of magic that are as simple as lights on a tree or hot chocolate in a favorite mug. I hope whether you’re running to this holiday expectantly or limping tiredly that you remember Jesus came for all of us. He is the whisper and the roar, the lion and the lamb.