Good Sabbath Rest

Today was one of those good Sundays. We were all well-rested and got out the door without much stress and turmoil. Judah actually wore his choir robe for the Christmas play and sang Away in the Manger with the other little 2 and 3 year olds without any fussing, and Ezra slept through most of the sermon. I got to talk quietly with several other mothers during the day and even kept my coffee consumption down.\par
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When we got home, the boys dutifully took naps, Michael played basketball on a lovely December afternoon, and I actually enjoyed worked on our Christmas letter! This was the first Sunday of Advent, and Michael set up the tree with Judah’s abundant “help” and enthusiasm. In the evening I made chocolate cupcakes, reheated some clam chowder and biscuits from last night, and we had a pleasant dinner, too! After dinner we started our advent devotions, complete with chocolate-concealing advent calendars. Judah actually remembered from last year\’c3\’82\’c2\~that there was chocolate behind the flaps! That was a hit with Ezra, too, by the way. We approximated an advent wreath and candles, at the last minute and lit one candle, much to the boy’s delight.\par
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After our devotions were done, we let Judah blow out the candle. He blew it out, looked around and said, “better knock the tree down and put it in the box!” Apparently he thought we’d\’c3\’82\’c2\~just had\’c3\’82\’c2\~Christmas.\par
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But we assured him that the tree was going to be up for a while, so he found a book on the table, stood up on the hearth, opened it and treated us to a song at the top of his lungs. He kept changing books, but the song (which we didn’t recognize) never changed and we watched and laughed. Not to be outdone, Ezra too climbed up on to the hearth with a book, carefully opened it, and then stood next to big brother with his mouth wide open singing his heart out! What with all of the singing (theirs) and the laughing (ours), it was a pretty noisy room for a while.\par
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When I asked Judah if he’d like to have a chocolate cupcake now, expecting an enthusiastic response, he said “maybe have it tomorrow?” and\’c3\’82\’c2\~kept on singing.\’c3\’82\’c2\~Ezra on the other hand, when asked if he wanted to eat, ran at full speed into the kitchen waving his arms around and jabbering. After his audience had disappeared, Judah too came into the kitchen and decided that a chocolate cupcake would hit the spot. After the kids went to bed and the dishes were done I had my dessert – a decaf mocha. I prefered it to cupcakes.\par
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There’s no point to this, other than to say that life is good, kids are cute, and mochas are heavenly!