Category: Christmas

Christmas

Christmas Thoughts

December 6th, 2025
Mollie T. Cox

I love the truths that we sing in our traditional Christmas hymns.

Our family sings every evening of Advent.

The quotes below are good reminders of the same truths.

Christ was born in the first century, yet he belongs to all centuries. He was born a Jew, yet he belongs to all races. He was born in Bethlehem, yet he belongs to all countries.

George W. Truett

Christmas: the Son of God expressing the love of God to save us from the wrath of God so we could enjoy the presence of God.

John Piper

The world can’t save itself. That’s the message of Christmas.

Tim Keller

Christmas is built on a beautiful and intentional paradox; that the birth of the homeless should be celebrated in every home.

G.K. Chesterton

It’s Christmas every time you let God love others through you.

Mother Teresa

Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.

John Wesley
Christmas, Parenting

What Is A Normal Christmas?

November 29th, 2025
Mollie T. Cox

One Advent evening, while my family sat in our living room singing Christmas Carols, we were interrupted by a knock on the door. A teenager in the neighborhood, whom we only knew by sight, was collecting donations for a club. We invited him to join our singing. He chose a song from the book we handed him and stayed a bit.

I was surprised. I still debate whether I was more surprised by the quickness of his response or by the lack of self-consciousness on the part of my sons and him. After he left, I decided that our sons saw our activity as normal while I suspected that a family singing Christmas carols in early December was rare.

Part of our collection

What about our visitor? Did he think a singing family was normal? It doesn’t matter. What matters is that I remember the seamlessness of that evening because our Christmas tradition was well established. We were the makers of “normal” for our Christmas season.

What else is normal for us? A long breakfast followed by Scriptures and singing before opening presents. No travel. No Santa. Fun gifts. Jelly Bellies anyone?

What is your “normal?”

Book Recommendations, Christmas

A Reminder: Advent Calendar of Books *

November 27th, 2025
Mollie T. Cox

What do I wish I had known and experienced when my sons lived at home?  An Advent Calendar of Books.

Rather than candy or trinkets, this Advent Calendar involves books to be unwrapped one by one during Advent. New books don’t have to be purchased yearly. Opening Christmas favorites can be satisfying.

Ideas abounded on the internet, but my favorites were beginning with a book per week of Advent and using library books until you decide which books you want—and can afford—in your permanent Christmas collection.

After years of collecting, I might have enough for each day of Advent. I recommended new favorites last year. (See here.) Other recent additions include

Mr. Willowby’s Christmas Tree by Robert Barry

The Christmas Tapestry by Patricia Polacco

The Christmas Owl by Ellen Kalish and Gideon Sterer

and Have Fun, Anna Hibiscus by Atinuke (Also titled Merry Christmas, Anna Hibiscus).

More favorites from my son’s childhoods include



Peter Spier’s Christmas by Peter Spier

Cranberry Christmas by Wende and Harry Devin

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson

and Good King Wenceslas by Pauline Baynes.

Happy reading.

* Updated version of November 23, 2024 blog

Christmas, Relationships

The Gift Of Listening

December 28th, 2024
Mollie T. Cox

Friends are those rare people who ask how we are, and then wait to hear the answer.

Ed Cunningham

If Cunningham is right, then I had a treasure trove of friends in 2024.

Tina, who sat with me on the church sofa and listened while I talked.

Katie, who drove to my house for tea and prayer and listened while I talked.

Barb, who drove me to class and listened while I talked.

Kathy, who sat on my patio and listened while I talked.

Sara, who sat with me in her car and listened while I talked.

Beth, who phoned and listened while I talked—as she has for over sixteen years.

My mother-in-law who was always glad to hear from me and listened while I talked.

Aunt Shirley, the only aunt who listened while I talked rather than talking while I listened.

My husband, who sat up past his bedtime to listen while I talked.

And more who crossed my path less frequently.

Why is listening such a gift?

Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force. … When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand.

Karl Menniger

May we all listen and be listened to in 2025.

Christmas, Memories

Returning to Former Places

December 21st, 2024
Mollie T. Cox

At a recent banquet, one speaker urged his listeners to revisit places of former years—not literally, but rather as a mind exercise. His words immediately brought forth a memory of former years as well as a memory of a visit to that place decades later.

In the 1990s, during a rare trip to my grandparents’ home, I stood in their front yard one late night and was ambushed by the pungency of the honeysuckle growing in their far backyard. That smell immediately evoked a 1960s image of my mother, aunt, and grandparents drinking coffee and talking around a concrete table while my siblings and I chased fireflies and listened to their comforting, adult conversations.

Almost another thirty years have passed, and that memory of a memory is still with me. I’m not sure why it lingers or why it means so much—maybe even more than the original memory of evenings I loved before air-conditioning kept us indoors.

However, I’m glad for both the urging and permission to return to former places—whether literally or in my mind—especially during the holidays when I might be ambushed again.

May only good memories sneak up on you this Christmas.