Sunday Club Newsletter December 2012

Newsletter:  December 2012

And unto us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be on his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.  Isaiah 9:6. 

Dear Saint Anne’s families,

I have a new favorite Christmas song and I can’t get enough of it.  I set my iPod to repeat and listen to it over and over, until the kids beg for something different.  It’s DaveMatthews’ Christmas Song: 

She was his girl; he was her boyfriend
She’d be his wife; take him as her husband
A surprise on the way, any day, any day
One healthy little giggling dribbling baby boy

 

One healthy little giggling dribbling baby boy…  Just this fills me with Christmasy warmth.    

Though, of course, as every parent knows, the story neither begins nor ends with a baby in our arms.

Sometimes the journey to the baby is long and rocky, filled with pain and uncertainty.  For some, the uncertainty and fear begins when the baby arrives – things may not be as we had anticipated in any number of ways.  And then begins the actual parenting.   There is much joy and laughter (and much dribbling!).  But there is also sacrifice that can deplete us.  There can be struggle to provide and protect.  Sometimes there is loss and pain and grief so inky and deep it engulfs and consumes us.  We have no way of knowing, before we start out, just where the road will lead.  

We are told Advent is about making room in our hearts for Christ to be born into us.  But the story of Jesus is a human one, and the full human experience is a true pilgrimage – adventurous and exhilarating, challenging and difficult.  It is no simple matter to embrace the whole of it.  

As we settle into the darkness of another Advent and look toward the light of another Christmas, we have the opportunity, once again, to make peace with these tensions.  This peace is offered freely in the hope and in the promise of our Christmas story, where in the celebrations of our joys and in the depths of our pain, we are not alone.  Where not only God, but the whole of creation meets us:  angels and shepherds and stars in the night sky shining down on our so-excited-for-Christmas-that-they-can’t-stand-it children.  And there we are in the middle of the story, loving with our whole hearts, with everything we are and everything we have to offer, the bundle that divine grace places into our arms.  Christmas is where we gratefully embrace this giggling dribbling life; all that is and all that is to come, whatever that might be. 

The wise men came - three made their way
To shower him with love while he lay in the hay
Shower him with love love love
Love love love
Love love is all around

Merry, merry Christmas, 
 Jennifer

Sunday Club date for the calendar in December and January:

During Advent:  Mary and Joseph’s Big Advent Journey

Sunday Club hour during December and first week of January:  Epiphany pageant rehearsals

December 6^th:  High School Youth White Elephant Gift Exchange & Party

December 8^th:  A Celtic Christmas Concert held at St. Anne’s. 
“Tunes, Carols, Stories for the entire family”.  Adults $10, children & students, free

December 9^th:  Winterlights Tour at the Minneapolis Institute of Art.  1:00 pm, led by Colleen Watson

December 15^th:  Children’s Christmas Boutique at St. Anne’s 9:00 am – 11:00 am

December 21^st:  Winter Solstice Service & Bonfire  7:00 pm

December 23^rd:  All-Parish Christmas Caroling at Southview Acres Care Center 12:15 pm

December 24^th”:  Christmas Eve Eucharist at 4:00 pm – with a visit from St. Nicholas!

                                                  Christmas Eve Eucharist at 10:00 pm  

December 25^th:  Christmas Morning Eucharist 10:30 am

January 6^th:  Epiphany Pageant during 10:30 worship

January 18^th:  Feed My Starving Children