Joyful expectation

It is Christmas Eve and we are waiting.

Waiting in joyful expectation.

Tonight we will go to our Christmas Eve church service.  Then we will come home and have our Shepherd's Meal together.  A meal of soup and bread, perhaps a bit like the shepherds may have shared all those years ago.  It is a simple and humble meal, as we anticipate the feast and celebration tomorrow.

Then we will read the Christmas story, imagining how it must have been on this night.  We will put the Christmas Eve ornament on our Jesse tree and light our Advent candles, just the 4, one more time before we light the white one tomorrow. We will make cookies before bedtime, and, as is tradition at our house, we will open one gift tonight.  Excitement is in the air.

We wait in joyful expectation.  For tomorrow.  For the day we celebrate the birth of the Christ child.  For the feast and the celebration.  And even more so, for the feast and celebration to come.  When Christ, the same one who came so humbly in a manger, will come again, only this time in all His glory.  As the King that He is and always has been.

We wish all of you a Merry Christmas.  That you will be consumed by the Love of the Father.  And marvel in the miracle that is Christmas.