church year

Following my husband’s family tradition, ours celebrates the 12 Days of Christmas by opening one present on Christmas day and each day after until the stack is empty. This reduces the wild Christmas Day unwrapping that can feel gluttonous.…

Every year, I tell myself to never, ever, use that plastic Easter basket grass again. I have clear memories of doing so last year after picking it out of every crevice somehow for months on end. Yet I just opened up my Easter holiday…

“Why are these Christmas songs so sad?” The question came from a little girl named Hazel. She’d been raised in a different Christian tradition, with drums, guitars, and applause. But that Sunday of Advent, she was sitting with her dad in a…