December is here! The days will fill up fast with holiday celebrations. Here are this week’s faves. Hope you enjoy them as much as I did.
1) Beyond the Guitar Christmas – We’ve been listening to Christmas music since October. Both worship carols and secular songs. Even our favorite guitarist has arranged and posted some Christmas songs – a precious few. I post them here for you to enjoy a listen.
Photo Credit: Beyond the Guitar
YouTube Video – 3 Christmas Movie Classics on Guitar – Beyond the Guitar
YouTube Video – A Star Wars Christmas – Classical Guitar Mashup – Beyond the Guitar
YouTube Video – Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas (w/ Surprise Guest) – Beyond the Guitar [After the special guest enters the frame, he gets our full attention with the sweet music in the background.]
YouTube Video – December Song (Peter Hollens) – Classical Guitar Cover – Beyond the Guitar
YouTube Video – Amazing Grace – Beyond the Guitar [OK…not a Christmas song but one of my personal favorites of Nathan’s]
2) 4 Advent Habits with Justin Whitmel Earley – In less than a month, those of us who challenge ourselves with New Year’s resolutions will have our lists and resolve ready to go. When true habit change happens, it’s worth the work.
Several years ago, I had the opportunity to hear Justin Whitmel Earley speak. He wears many hats – attorney, writer, speaker, husband, dad. He spoke then on the habits of a simple life, introducing his fascinating book The Common Rule. His latest book is Habits of the Household. Both are excellent resources for examining our lives (home and work) with the goal of building habits of flourishing.
I was not surprised when he offered us Advent habits (practices, playlists, and readings). Earley offers all these free as part of his determination to do good with his lift. The books go deeper and are definitely worth the read. For now, check out the links and note below his recommended 4 Advent Habits – Kneeling posture in prayer, lighting candles, tuning to God as the first voice of the day, and pocketing our phones while waiting (restoring the art of waiting).
Photo Credit: Justin Whitmel Earley, The Common Rule, Advent Edition, 4 Advent Habits
Understanding True Habit Change and Rocking Your New Year’s Resolutions – Deb Mills Writer
3) Advent Readings – Advent means “coming”. We celebrate the coming of Christ, as Messiah, a helpless baby born of a virgin mother. God in arms. Miracle and mystery. Advent also commemorates the coming again of Christ in the last days. We look with hope to the day He will come again for His people, as Redeemer King.
This year, our church is working through an Advent study entitled Our Hope Has Come. Gathering in home groups, we celebrate Christ’s coming in our hearts and throughout history.
In our home, we have a shelf of Christmas books (for children and adults) that have been treasures to us through the years. We bring them back out at Christmastime, reading again the beautiful messages of hope we have in Jesus.
Do you have any favorite Advent books or online resources? Please share them in the Comments below. Thanks.
Hope for Hopeless Things: The First Sunday & Candle of Advent – Ann Voskamp [Advent readings start with this one]
4) Forgive and Remember – In less than a month, we leave 2021 behind. Hopefully without regret. I’ve written a lot about forgiveness this year. Partly because of seeing the pain of prolonged unforgiveness in some of my closest relationships. Too much hurt. Too deep the offense. Too unfathomable the possibility of reconciling. The best attempt is “I can forgive, but I can’t forget.”
Photo Credit: Pinterest
What if we don’t try to forget? What if we determine to remember, but remember in a way that moves us to healing…to true forgiveness.
Psychiatrist and writer Curt Thompson has become a favorite resource of mine in recent months. Books, podcast, and articles. This week, I discovered his piece Forgive and Remember. Intrigued by the title, I read it and found hope renewed in the possibility of forgiveness, even in chronic trauma or painful persistent memories.
I find Dr. Thompson very engaging, but if you aren’t used to his references to brain physiology, you may need to do a slow read. Here is his take on the importance of remembering, in company – with a sense of the presence of Christ in the pain, remembering in the skin of “the offender”, and remembering with people who care about you.
“Because I refrain from remembering, I prevent myself from eventually remembering additional parts of the story that I have likely thus far, albeit nonconsciously and unintentionally, ignored. For indeed, it is possible that forgiveness requires me to expand my awareness of additional realities that were in play at the time I was wounded. For instance, if I only pay attention to my hurt feelings, I never attune to my adversary’s own layers of brokenness; never consider their deeper story, the cistern of their own fear of their own deep shame from which emerged their hurtful behavior in the first place; the depth to which they “do not know what they are doing…” Through the hard, repeated work of my imagination, my awareness of the larger truths of the life of the one who has mistreated me begins to gradually diffuse the intensity of the emotional content of my anger and resentment.“
“The work of forgiveness requires the remembering of the event in the context of others who assist you to remember the additional alternative realities that we so often forget. Imagining Jesus being with you in the moment during which and after you were mistreated begins to literally change the nature of those neural networks that represent the fury of the hurt you initially felt. Over time the remembering of the hurtful event alongside the memory of Jesus and others who represent him begin to diffuse the intensity of the electrochemical signals of the hurtful memory, and open up opportunities for you to begin to construct a different possible future between you and the one who has hurt you. We then begin to see that remembering the event is really about the process of remembering it differently. Remembering it in a way that is eventually utterly transformed and transformational…reminding us that we are not really ever alone.
This takes time, effort, and plenty of help from those with whom you are practicing together to forgive not seven, but seventy times; to forgive, even as your Father in heaven has forgiven you.
Forgiveness. Who would have thought that there would be so much freedom in remembering? Sounds like something we should never forget.” – Dr. Curt Thompson, Forgive and Remember
YouTube Video – However Long the Path Might Seem: It’s Christmas. Time to Reconcile. – Penny.
5) Christmas Ads 2021 – I love Christmas commercials (or ads). All the twinkle lights and unfolding family gatherings or intimate moments. The compilation of Christmas ads below are all from 2021. Many are from European stores/businesses. Take your pick.
Photo Credit: Glossiplanka 360
YouTube Video – This Christmas, Nothing’s Stopping Us – Tesco
YouTube Video – Unexpected Guest – John Lewis & Partners
YouTube Video – An Unlikely Friendship – Prime Video – Christmas Ad 2021
YouTube Video – The StepDad – Disney Christmas Advert 2021/Official Disney UK
YouTube Video – Imaginary Iggy – McDonald’s UK
YouTube Video – Christmas Is What You Make It – Hobby Lobby – Christmas 2021
YouTube Video – A Christmas to Savour – Sainsbury’s – Christmas 2021 Ad
YouTube Video – Coca-Cola – Christmas 2021 – Real Magic
YouTube Video – John Lewis 2021 Christmas Advert Alternative by NimbusBeds.co.uk – Stop Loneliness at Christmas [2020 revisited]
YouTube Video – Boots Christmas Advert 2021 – #BagsofJoy – Boots UK
YouTube Video – Ernste Christmas Ad 2021 – #BelieveInTomorrow
YouTube Video – 10 Emotional and Heartbreaking Christmas Ads EVER! Most Emotional Holiday Ads (19 minutes – Don’t miss these! Most are in languages other than English, but it won’t alter the beauty of the film story in these little ads. If you need a good and cleansing cry for no reason except the beauty of a little story in an ad, your heart will be filled.)
YouTube Video – Top 10 Most Heartwarming Christmas Commercials Ever Made (Will Make You Cry) – 16 minutes. At least fast forward to the last few. So lovely.
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That’s it for this week. Please share a fave of your own from this week in the Comments. Thanks for stopping by. It is a joy for me to share in this together with you.
Bonuses:
Photo Credit: Ann Voskamp
[If you want to see The Chosen Christmas – The Messengers but aren’t going back to theaters yet, it will be streaming soon free to all. Available on The Chosen app and we’ll see where else when it is announced.]
YouTube Video – Christmas with The Chosen – The Messengers – Watch This Before the Christmas Special
A Thanksgiving Prayer from the Anglican 1662 Prayer Book – Marlo Huber Salamy Facebook Page
John Harper – the Night the Titanic Sank – Facebook Story
She Was Tired of Her Giving Her Kids Candy So She Wrote Her Mother-in-Law a Letter
Photo Credit: Tom Gauld, 
