I’ve always preferred the British “holiday” to the American “vacation” not because it sounds so much more elegant and poised (it does), but because it’s etymology more accurately describes my experience of our time away as a family in Maine for the past six years.

We don’t need to know the original Old English hāligdæg from which the word derives to see “holy” and “day” in “holiday.”

That which is holy is set apart, and the world’s original intent was to be used to describe a Christian festival or holy day, a still appropriate use.

But a summer holiday, far from an endeavor to vacate one’s life entirely, helps us step back, reflect and learn how to embody our regular lives more completely.

In stealing away for a few weeks, our goal is time that is set apart for certain things—physical restoration and relaxation, connecting as a family, being mostly outdoors, experiencing God’s creation in a setting entirely unlike our home in central Virginia, a fresh scene to inspire fresh thinking—not to abandon the reality of our life completely but to gain perspective on the rhythms of our everyday and bring into focus the essential as we allow the flotsam of the prior year wash out to sea.

In Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s 1950 classic, Gift from the Sea, she writes:

For life today in America is based on the premise of ever-widening circles of contact and communication. It involves not only family demands, but community demands, national demands, international demands on the good citizen, through social and cultural pressures, through newspapers, magazines, radio programs, political drives, charitable appeals, and so on. My mind reels in it, What a circus act we women perform every day of our lives. It puts the trapeze artist to shame. Look at us. We run a tight rope daily, balancing a pile of books on the head. Baby-carriage, parasol, kitchen chair, still under control. Steady now!

And, 76 years on, it still rings true. My heart rate rises just reading these few sentences! Even as I know exactly where the opt-out of the hamster wheel is found.

The Lindberghs were controversial figures in many ways, which lives marked by both great adventure and profound tragedy, and while she may not be a woman worthy of imitation, Gift from the Sea uncannily transcends decades as it paints a picture of life as a modern woman, wife and mother, asking questions and offering answers on the themes of family life, work, civic duty, marriage, community and society, spiritually and so on.

All of these reflections inspired by the shapes of the shells she discovers—her gifts of clarity and consideration—on her two week retreat by the sea.

This year in Maine, perhaps more than any other, I tried to discipline my mind and senses to notice—the people around me, the rhythm of creation, the reason we felt so at ease and our children so joyful, and all the lessons God had for me in that quieter-than-usual stint of summer.

Below are some of them, drawn primarily from quiet morning walks along the shoreline allowing for brief times of singularity of thought, moments watching our four children frolic amongst the tide pools on the aptly named Mother’s Beach, and walks through charming neighborhoods pondering life by the sea and perhaps inspired in part by the way in which Lindbergh finds the shape of her life reflected in the forms of the created order.

Tides

On the counter in the home we stay in on our annual retreat to Maine’s southern coast sits a small square digital device that shows, by way of small illuminated aqua blue boxes either increasing or decreasing across the face of the screen, the rhythm of the tides. For those, like myself, with more analog preferences, beside the tide clock is a binder with plastic sleeves holding a set of local tide charts for the summer.

As with years before, the clock and the charts became the north star to our days in vacationland, deciding when we would head to the beach or the rocks to explore, and when to hang back for a swim in the pool or go for a walk by the water or into town.

One does not tell the tide when to go out or come in, but rather adjust one’s day to the rhythm of the water. Predictable as they may be, as the tides follow the lunar day and as such shift by 50 minutes each day, just enough to disorient our tidy 24-hour rhythms.

But it is indeed the tide—not the hour—that tells the beach-goer, and all the more the lobsterman, fisherman, dockmaster and sailor when it is time to go, to wait, to return.

The rhythms of the tides suggest we were created for rhythm in our lives. But a quick perusal through any bookstore self-help section—spiritual or otherwise— could tell you that. The rub of submitting to the rhythm of the tides, however, is that it runs counter to the rhythms to which we are accustomed, calling into question the origin of rhythm itself—and by whom it can and should be set.

The first day of Advent is the Christian new year, it marks the start of the church calendar and liturgical year, and for good reason…Advent finds us waiting for Life to begin.

Starting our year with the anticipation of the birth of Christ might sound like a good rhythm, a nice idea, but how many of us are willing to submit to this rhythm, really? What with Advent coming right in the middle of absolutely everything, especially for a mother to a young family. No, reflection and resolutions and restraint must wait until the garland is packed away and the glitter vacuumed up off the floor on January 1 (which, by the way, sits in the middle of Christmastide—a season of continued feasting). In many ways, our new year is dictated by sales and schools and social media instead of the coming of the Son of God.

Similarly, in motherhood it seems interruption is a rhythm all its own, predictable only in its unpredictability. There is the phenomenon that leaves you frozen at nap time, or with an unexpected quiet 10 or 15 minutes alone, because the psychological discomfort of beginning a task only to be interrupted is almost worse that not getting anything “accomplished” at all. Yet, as Fr. Ronald Rolheiser writes in the Domestic Monastery in which he compares the daily demands and interruptions of motherhood to a monastic bell:

For years, while raising children, her time is never her own, her own needs have to be kept in second place, and every time she turns around a hand is reaching out and demanding something. She hears the monastic bell many times during the day and she has to drop things in mid-sentence and respond, not because she wants to, but because it’s time for that activity and time isn’t her time, but God’s time. The rest of us experience the monastic bell each morning when our alarm clock rings and we get out of bed and ready ourselves for the day, not because we want to, but because it’s time.

One morning I brought my children to the beach to play and, having not checked the tides before heading down (and subsequently praising God in that moment that I am a relative beach gear minimalist) found the water covering the large majority of the typically rocky, tide pool dotted beach. We had been trying to force a rhythm to each of our days away—eat, beach, pool, eat, rest, play, eat, walk, sleep—and the rhythm of the tides—that monastic bell of the sea—gently insisted on another way for that day.

Learning how to submit to and live in sync with a rhythm outside of our own preference or comfort zone might be one of the greatest milestones in the journey to spiritual maturity.

When the strong tides lift, and the cables strain, will your anchor drift or firm remain?

Saltwater

One evening after putting the kids to bed, our conversation drifted to real estate, as it often does in places where we feel like we could stay forever. And, as appropriate to our age and life stage, that conversation naturally merged into home maintenance, renovation costs and all the dreamy details that come with owning any home at all and of which we are now, fortunately or unfortunately, well-versed.

The conversation went from “how lovely to have a cottage by the sea someday” to “how often do you think you’d have to paint/replace siding/do this-or-that repair” etc. etc.

And then I took in a deep breath of clean, Maine air, looked up at the clear-as-anything star-splattered night sky and realized that was the wrong conversation to have.

Because to be this close to beauty requires a blind willingness to take an earthly battering.

As Spurgeon said, “I have learned to kiss the wave that throws me against the Rock of Ages.”

And I was almost moved to tears just thinking about how many people make their homes and build their legacies and create their memories in this little town just to be close to the beauty of it all and how there was probably never a doubt in anyone’s mind despite the storms and floods that would come and the saltwater that would wear away anything and everything. The same saltwater they paid all this money and invested all this time and work just to look out over every morning with their coffee and toast.

We just want to be near Beauty. The source of it. As close as we can get. No matter the cost. And the closer you get, and the longer you stay, and the more you drink it in, the less likely you are to turn around and go back to where you came from.

Once the saltwater gets into your system, it’s got you hook, line and sinker.

Oh love that wilt not let me go.

Coastlines

Every year, I sit in my favorite spot to pray and overlook a beautiful stretch of rocky southern Maine coastline, watching the waves crash against the rocks, sending sea spray tens of feet into the air.

The jagged rocks below my feet and my gaze are smoothed and worn by their proximity to the sea, they have been shaped over time by the repetition of the water—that rhythm of the tides we spoke of earlier—and they are changed because of it.

I spent much of our holiday thinking about childhood, about the environment(s) we plop our kids down in—beginning in our own homes and then radiating out from there. I started thinking about this nostalgic 90’s childhood everyone seems to be after and how the conditions for a childhood like that—at least the one people are going for in their minds and on their Pinterest boards—cannot be curated. Rather, the child must be placed in conditions in which this type of childhood could naturally unfold.

Here, the conditions existed—a safe community, beauty all around, weather that beckons outdoor play and sport, a sense of simplicity that comes when summer isn’t overscheduled. As a result, I saw amongst children and teenagers very little phone use, pick-up beach baseball games, lemonade stands, hours of entertainment among tide pools teeming with various sea life.

Likewise, on my early morning walks along the coastline, I passed by what seemed like positive, energetic geriatric after positive, energetic geriatric. One morning, an older man was setting his digital watch as I passed, his toddler grandson in a stroller beside him, ready for an adventure with his grandfather. Watch successfully set, he boldly announced “ready, go!” and off they strolled at a comically slow crawl. Another morning, a second older gentleman was blasting classical music from his phone as he walked by the water, weights in hand and the widest grin across his face.

“Morning, how are you?!” I said as I passed by, barely able to help myself in response to his enthused demeanor.

“Terrific!! And how about yourself?” he replied.

I’m terrific, too! Terrific, indeed. And how could I be anything else? This is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it.

The coastlines had me once again convinced of the truth that environment—the people and place and atmosphere in which you find yourself, intentionally or otherwise—makes you who you are, and how you are.

Want to grow closer to God and love your neighbor well? Be in a community (a local church) where people also crave the Lord and serve others well.

Want freedom from mediocrity? Make it a point to get into rooms of exceptional individuals, read the biographies of great men and women and sit down for coffee with those you admire in work and in life.

Want a slow childhood for your kids? Find a place where it can naturally unfold, free from the pressure to have every moment accounted for, not strangled by schedules.

Want to be healthy and happy and loving life when you’re 80 or more years old? Go for a walk by sea in Maine at 7 am on a Wednesday.

Let new and nobler life begin…

Five years ago, my husband and I decided to take our then two small children to Maine for a week to “see how we liked it,” the notion of which, for anyone who lives in/ spends summers in/has visited Vacationland, sounds absolutely preposterous. Life in Maine is, after all, the way life should be. There is not much—aside from the 12 hour drive that separates it from our home in Virginia—not to like. And we have returned every summer since.

From it’s sparkling southern coast to the charming towns of the iconic midcoast, torn straight from the pages of an L.L. Bean catalog, to Acadia with its surrounding “Harbors” of varying vibes and all manner of lakes, farms and mountains further inland, summer in Maine feels quintessentially nostalgic, a place where a truly carefree, vintage childhood can unfold.

And because it feels so distinctly whimsical, almost as if crafted over the generations specifically to hold the Time of Wonder that is childhood (see what I did there?) the summer aura of Maine and its sister New England getaways of Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket and all the gem locales between is best captured in children’s books, specifically beautifully illustrated picture books. The kind that work themselves into a family’s culture the way grains of sand from a day spent on Maine’s rocky coast work their way into a carseat.

I hadn’t set out to write this post, really. There are, in fact, dozens more in the hopper that I had hoped to give my attention to this week. But as I was stuffing our seasonal book basket chock full of well-worn family favorites, their familiar pages beckoned me to share our beloved little late-summer library, curated over the years from shops in Kennebunkport’s Dock Square, gifts from friends and family, and in the pursuit of local or little known authors and artists and children’s classics alike.

Whether any given week in the summer finds me in our own home in central Virginia, reckoning with the crispy grass and intolerable humidity amongst which Thomas Jefferson and several other founding fathers somehow saw fit to make their homes (we all know autumn is Virginia’s shining season), or soaking in an evening stroll on Kennebunk’s Mother’s Beach, nautical-striped cotton sweater tossed over the warmer day’s swimsuit and shorts, in reading them I have found that I, alongside my children, become Sal, traversing across Penobscot Bay One Morning in Maine, or Miss Rumphius, scattering seeds to make the world more beautiful, or the lighthouse keeper’s wife saying Hello Lighthouse while arriving by boat to care for her new husband, or Ack the Nantucket Duckling, afraid of being different before being celebrated for those exact differences at an annual local parade.

We have inhabited these stories each summer, finding adventure in a day spent picking blueberries, going lobstering, or painting the sea, and they have brought richness to our annual retreat to Maine and wonder to the ordinary dog days spent in our relatively land-locked home.

Despite the title of this piece, I’m confident there are many more nostalgic New England summer titles out there that we’ve yet to discover. So if, in fact, there’s one missing that’s near and dear to your heart, please drop it in the comments for all to see (and for me to snap up for our library in a hurry).

Happy reading, happy summer!

The Complete Nostalgic New England Picture Book List

The McCloskey Collection

One Morning in Maine

Blueberries for Sal

Burt Dow, Deep-Water Man (not pictured, found in the McCloskey Treasury)

Time of Wonder

Make Way for Ducklings

The Barbara Cooney Classics

Miss Rumphius

Island Boy

Hattie and the Wild Waves (not pictured)

World More Beautiful: The Life and Art of Barbara Cooney by Angela Burke Kunkel (not pictured)

Wistful by the Water

Hello Lighthouse by Sophia Blackall

Breaking Waves: Winslow Homer Paints the Sea by Robert Burleigh and Wendell Minor

The Little Island by Margaret Wise Brown

Sweet, Silly & Summery

Ack! The Nantucket Duckling by A.K. Spurway

The Seven Silly Eaters by Mary Ann Hoberman (not distinctly New England, but their piney cottage by the water gives me all the Maine-y summer vibes)

Grandma Drove the Lobsterboat by Katie Clark

The Summer Visitors by Karel Hayes

Counting Our Way to Maine by Maggie Smith (Our family favorite!)

Locals, Lobsters & Littles

A Wee Sea Shanty by Rihanna Jones

Lobsterman by Dahlov Ipcar

Dahlov Ipcar’s Maine Alphabet by Dahlov Ipcar (not pictured, trapped in a napping toddlers room at the time of this photographing)

L is for Lobster: A Maine Alphabet by Cynthia Furlong Reynolds (not pictured)

Going Lobstering by Jerry Pallotta

Summer by Gerda Muller

This weekend’s round-up revolves around the shifting sands of childhood and family life, from over-scheduled childhoods to the benefits of swim team to the millennial and zoomer struggle for the American Dream (with a few fun home design pieces, of course). What activities we should commit to as a family is something I think about quite often. I worry about doing too much or too little, letting their activities dictate our days on the one hand or depriving them of critical childhood memories and milestones on the other. I wonder what we are missing out on communally when children’s activities are the primary driver of family time—or if they aren’t—and about the fleeting, unstructured time given only in childhood that they might be missing, as well.

But despite this, I continue to come to the same conclusion about how grounding kids in faith-filled traditions and liturgical living, grafting them into a rich inheritance and Christian heritage that has endured for generations upon generations is at least one of the antidotes to what can be a frantic, over-scheduled modern family life.

Further, as children grow and young adults struggle to piece together some semblance of a grown up life, I’m increasingly convinced of how generational faithfulness in all its forms — the physical, emotional, spiritual, material continuity of a family over time, is the salve required to soothe the struggle in a time of severe economic, geopolitical, moral and cultural tumult.

Happy reading and, as always, feel free to sound off in the comments!

Present…but not really — “The quantity of time can deceive us into believing we’re offering something that only the quality of our attention can provide. There are countless ways to disappear without ever leaving the room.” A real kick in the pants from !

In that same vein, We’re quietly teaching our kids that everything is more important than them by .

When Do Our Children Have Time to Experience Ordinary Life by asks great questions about activities and experiencing vs. learning critical life skills.

So many of our friends do swim team and while we haven’t jumped on the bandwagon quite yet, this piece from makes a convincing case.

Beauty and Creation: Reflecting God in the Sacred Home by — lovely and inspiring, as always, from Ashley.

Young adults are poor despite every metric which suggests otherwise by — a sobering look at where millennials and Gen Z sits (languishes?) economically, and an argument for the value of social capital and generational continuity.

As a former PR director for a large faith-based organization, I know from experience that almost any secular publication/reporter wanting to write the faith angle on a Christian individual or company/org is about to drag said faith through the mud with a level of haughty sarcasm only “elite” secular mainstream journos can muster. This article from AD on Christian interior designers really feels no different…you can almost hear the reporter laughing as you read. Still, the conversation around how Christian homes should look or be designed differently than secular ones is very interesting to me (I even wrote about it a few years back for ) More on this soon.

How Do You Redecorate a House That’s Been in Your Family for Five Generations from Town & Country — a multi-generational socialite family home in Midcoast Maine? Say less.

Finally, today’s quote comes from Rev. Jesus Urteaga’s booklet Bright and Cheerful Homes which can be found on Scepter publishing. It is excellent and free to read here.

Happy Independence Day weekend! Feeling so grateful for this land that I love. In all her imperfections, America is beautiful.

First up, some housekeeping. I’ve loved sharing a weekly round-up of my favorite reads/links, etc. but doing so in the manner in which I was going about it—said round-up prefaced by a lengthy essay or reflection—is unsustainable in this season of life and has for the most part eaten up the slivers of time available to me for the lengthy list of other essays in the hopper. So, I’ve tweaked the series name a bit and plan to keep each installment short, with a collect or prayer, quote and then our weekly round-up.

Happy reading!

We’ll spend some time at the pool tomorrow before heading to a friend’s for bbq and fireworks and I’m forever finding classic 4th food inspiration from (like her iconic flag cake) and (like this easy peasy Summer Ice Box Cake).

For the patriotic nerd in you (and in me), a history of July 4th celebrations.

Who has plans to see Young Washington? We were given the opportunity to view it early and can attest that it’s a great patriotic family movie for older kids!

For some reason, my husband and I have felt the pull to hyper-focus on our one and only son this summer (poor guy is swimming in a sea of sisters, though I’m convinced this will help to make him an excellent husband!) A Good Use of Summer by and ’s latest on How to Build a Solid Boy have offered encouragement to this end.

Speaking of our son, we threw him an epic 1776-themed 7th birthday party and I’m sharing all the details.

I was thrilled to read of Anglican House Publisher’s new imprint Anglican House Family run by Danielle Hitchen of Catechesis Books. I pre-ordered their new family catechism resource in a hurry and eagerly await the whimsical Illustrated Family Prayer!

A Day in the Life of a Faithful Christian Household by was a welcomed reminder that discipleship in the home is less about perfection than showing up.

One of my favorite follows as of late is —a mother-daughter duo bringing us along for the ride for their gorgeous and fun dinner parties and gatherings. They shared recently about the power of family dinner for building family culture and solidifying sibling relationships—an ever-welcome reminder to protect sacred time around the table.

It’s approximately 10 million degrees in central Virginia, so we haven’t been doing a ton of outdoor strolls, nevertheless, ’s A Theology of Walking was a helpful supplement for the Christian who wonders if getting those steps in is worth anything beyond what the fitness influencers are presently peddling and I’m inspired to resume family country walks when temperatures drop even ever-so-slightly.

Finally, a few wonderful new patriotic children’s books we’ve added to our collection this year here, here and here.

Every parent (most parents?) wants their kids to look up to the right people, the right heroes. They, themselves, would do well to aim at a virtuous, faithful life worthy of imitation—and many of us try and hope to succeed! But beyond the example set in the home, most of us desire for our children to be rightly positioned in life and in community so that they might glean a sense of virtue and good character and sturdy, unshakeable faith from noble men and women, whether in the form of books and films and sporting events or church potlucks, family gatherings and local little leagues.

This past year, perhaps in some part due to my husband’s passion for presidential history, my son developed a real interest in and love for Revolutionary War-era well, everything, chief of which being the Founding Father to end all founding fathers—General George Washington (Really imagining that Hamilton song to be playing here as you read this—maybe a feature to integrate, ?)

Near-universally admired and lauded by his Continental contemporaries, Washington—though imperfect—possessed a spirit of courage, resilience, grit, compassion, determination, humility and self-control.

A good hero for a young boy to have.

And so we encouraged him in it with books and documentaries and even a forthcoming trip back to Mt. Vernon, whose grounds we frequented for mornings out with two babies in tow when we lived in DC.

And then, it came time to plan his 7th birthday party…

Last year, when fire trucks and rescue heroes were the interest du jour, I found a wonderful local gentleman and Vietnam vet who owned a small fleet of vintage firetrucks that he used for various events and hired him to surprise our son on his 6th birthday—a surprise that rivaled that of the Battle of Trenton (but in a good way?) and one that I thought I’d simply never be able to top for any child ever again.

Now, before we go into the details of this year’s party, a brief moment for my philosophy on kids’ birthdays:

Our children’s birthday celebrations have run the gamut from extremely simple (so sorry to my third born, late-January baby!) to, well, vintage firetruck, bounce house, etc. etc.

Generally speaking, I follow the birthday child’s lead in terms of their excitement/hopes for their big day. When it comes to big family celebrations—which for a young child a birthday is among the biggest—I also tend to employ the marketing/fundraising tactic of Surprise and Delight (I write more about this here).

This varies from kid to kid and year to year. I’ve learned that for the first few years of life, a simple family gathering at home with fun balloons and sweet decorations, a new baby doll or toy truck, and a cake with a candle is truly all that’s required. I have even curated a Family Birthday Box filled with heirloom-quality items—a special plate, silver number candles, embroidered crowns for each child, a birthday sign, beeswax candles, etc.—to make things simple for me as I seek to also be present during the day with them.

But once they hit five or so and have a legitimate little group of friends, or even just one close friend, the notion of a party or gathering becomes more appealing. I’ve found that typically inviting the same number of friends as their age works to make a manageable and fun little two hour party. A family birthday outing or adventure with a friend or two in tow also makes for a sweet celebration.

But as much as I have tried to push the family outing idea, my big kids have maintained their love for and devotion to throwing a great birthday party. They talk about their parties to each other all year long, select a theme, plan most of it themselves, help me with the decor and the menu and genuinely delight in inviting their friends to celebrate with them.

My refrain then becomes, "You are only {insert age} once!” and it’s true. I want them to know how much we delight in the fact that they were born, how incredible it is that God made them, what a beautiful gift this life is, and that life lived out in Christian community is about celebrating what God has done in and for each other with others. Now, of course there are a million different ways to communicate all these things to a child on their birthday, but personally, I let them go as big as our family’s capacity in a given year or season allows while maintaining a handful of simple, steady family birthday traditions as our baseline, the “we always’” that we never skip (which is perhaps another post altogether).

But, I digress. This is a piece about birthday parties, after all.

Specifically, the 1776-themed party we threw for my son’s 7th birthday conveniently just weeks ahead of America’s 250th birthday.

So without further delay, here’s our Party Plan:

The Decor

I probably had the least capacity in this department with our having just moved back into our home post-renovation. For this reason, we opted to have the party outside despite the construction dumpster, port-a-potty and storage pod still lingering in the driveway.

I anchored the space with a 6 ft tall George Washington cutout from Amazon with a quote bubble that read “Happy 7th Birthday!” that I made at home.

I gave each child a handful of American flags (though not technically correct for the time period) to adorn the yard and was impressed when they placed the larger flags at the base of every tree in our front yard and the smaller ones neatly in front of each boxwood around our front porch.

July 4th decor, to awkwardly borrow a term from the Brits, sorted.

We hung an old tea-stained flag on our big oak tree and flung plastic Americana table cloths over folding tables we borrowed from a friend.

I always set up decor and balloons and gifts in our breakfast room to greet the birthday boy or girl when they come down the stairs in the morning (after they wake up to a room full of balloons and streamers on their bedroom door) and for this I purchased a few fun Americana party pieces from Meri Meri and then tied anything I could up with this grosgrain American flag ribbon.

The Food

I love to host a kids party between meals to ease the burden of food prep so that I can be more present in the fun! I sat down with our son to go over the menu and then assigned a revolutionary-themed name to each item the details of which are below.

Continental Cannons

pigs in a blanket

Revolutionary Rockets

watermelon star and blueberry skewers

Cannon Rammers

just two marshmallows on the end of a skewer & a huge hit

Tricorn Chips

blue and white tortilla chips—wish I found red!

Shrapnel

pretzels, white chocolate-covered pretzels and M&Ms

French Reinforcements

macarons

The Fun

A successful kids party is a structured kids party in my humble opinion. Little kids like to know where to go and when and what’s next. Our son’s guests were greeted by colonial fife and drum music and a little painting station featuring Washington busts, American flags and star-spangled stars for everyone to keep their hands busy right away, which kept them mostly entertained until the main event.

About a month before the party, I had the idea to hire an 18th century historical character to come to the party and nerd out with the children. Dear reader, I was not optimistic about finding such a person—and definitely not in a town with so much historical significance and landmarks this close to the Semiquincentennial.

But as God would have it, in His sweet care for our dear son, I found a local historical actor on none other than a website entitled “Gigsalad" who had done work at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello and other local sites.

And he was perfect.

From his entrance into the party donned in colonial military attire to his introduction featuring the reading of a letter to my son from General George Washington himself to a taxation game involving the unjust seizure of red, white and blue M&Ms (rightfully restored at the end of the game) to writing with quill pens and real ink, signing an authentically sized copy of the Declaration of Independence, sealing a letter back to Gen. Washington with wax, a Colonial game demonstration, and fifing Happy Birthday, “Private Daniel” was truly better and more intentional that I could have ever imagined.

Our beloved impersonator then sent each child home with a quill pen, ink and fresh papyrus which we tucked into the goodie bags we had already made featuring a feather ball point pen, mini American flag, and a pocket Declaration of Independence/Constitution.

We finished the party off with a homemade Revolutionary battlefield cake and opening some very thoughtful gifts from sweet friends.

Few things fills my heart quite so much as making my children feel delighted in and deeply known—mission accomplished.

Happiest 7th Birthday to my dear son & Happy 250th Birthday, America!

The finest print: p.s. intellectual property theft/copyright infringement/stealing ideas is a huge, huge deal to me! I share to encourage, to uplift, to give you ideas that you are free to borrow and implement, but not to pass off as your own. Fun fact: If there is one girl on the internet who has the know how and connections to to legally remedy any aforementioned infringements, it’s me! Please ensure proper attribution here and everywhere you find yourself online, for the sake of your fellow creators.

Somewhere in the blurry midst of moving multiple times and welcoming four children we found ourselves on our anniversary in a new-ish town with no childcare, a new baby, no plans and very full arms.

It was tempting to blow past the day altogether, to write it off honoring our marriage and what God had done in and through it as a luxury afforded to those whose lives were arranged differently—closer to family, perhaps, or not in a new place with no real grasp on the babysitter landscape.

But one night, as our oldest who was five started with the questions about weddings and marriage, I told her our wedding anniversary was like our family’s birthday—the day “we” were born.

And that year, we had our very first Family Birthday Party. And ever since, it has been a simple and sweet way to mark God’s faithfulness in our marriage that we’ve all come to look forward to in these little years when elaborate anniversary trips or dates aren’t always possible, particularly on the actual day of.

Since the inception of this little tradition, my sister-in-law has begun gifting us childcare on or around our anniversary so that we can have a date and spend time just the two of us, which has been so lovely…but the FBP lives on!

Here’s our yearly Family Birthday Party game plan:

1. We have a universal favorite family meal. For us this has looked like ordering through Goldbelly from our favorite lobster shack in Maine, which happens to also send all the fun swag (napkins and buttons and stickers!) along with their famous lobster rolls.

2. We, of course, bake a family birthday cake. This is especially fun because everyone gets to sing and everyone gets to blow out the candle.

3. We watch our wedding video together (and everyone asks why they weren’t there, if we can get married again, if they can wear my wedding dress someday, etc. etc.)

4. We go around the dinner table and say something we are grateful to God for doing in the life of our family over the past year and what we are praying for in the year ahead (the prayers at this age are completely classic).

5. We pray a collect (see below for some ideas) over our marriage and family.

In the future, I may start jazzing things with some of our favorite birthday decorations and a balloon for each year we’ve been married (an idea I had, quite literally, just now when typing this). I would also love to have this be the day when we open our “Family Yearbook” from the year prior, which, of course, requires that I sort our photos accordingly.

Yet, as with many traditions, I must always force myself to remember that it is the repeated sustainable simplicity—the almost automatic nature of them—that truly allows them to be woven tightly into the fabric of a family’s culture and yearly calendar.

Below are two collects from the 2019 Book of Common Prayer that would be meaningful to pray at a Family Birthday Party, substituting in the second, “our family” or “the {last name} family” and “our"/us” respectively.

Celebrating the beginning of our family together has also encouraged us as a married couple to reflect on the “why” of our marriage on the whole, with four sweet faces gathered around the table alongside us serving as a very present, tangible testament to God’s goodness and faithfulness in our lives, in seasons of both want and in plenty.

In her book For the Family’s Sake, Susan Schaeffer Macaulay writes of her mother, Edith Schaeffer, “I came to know the everyday Lord Jesus within the intimacy of a truly homelike home. My mother often sang songs of gladness about the goodness of Jesus as she worked around the kitchen. I could see He made her glad….I’ll always remember this lovely young mother, the atmosphere and home I grew up in, and that special scene.”

And that lovely young mother, herself, revealed the effort behind such moments in What is a Family? writing, “How precious a thing is the human family. It it not worth some sacrifice in time, energy, safety, discomfort, work? Does anything come forth without work?”

I talk a lot here about an archetype called “The Legacy-Minded Mother” and this is why…

A mother holds an integral, central role in the formation of the family culture and legacy—of what is inherited both materially and spiritually. Her careful cultivation of meaningful traditions, family culture, and a liturgical life at home and in the world help determine the direction any given family will go, for generations.

Historically-speaking, women like Nelle Reagan, Paula Bonhoeffer, Sarah Edwards and St. Monica were global change agents in and through their motherhood, handing down spiritual legacies that formed the foundation of their children’s advancement of the common good and kingdom of God.

Mothers give meaningful shape to a life handed down.

Enter Mother’s Day in the Year of Our Lord 2026, and the gift guides and sales making their way endlessly into my inbox—though full of pretty things—feel disconnected from the nobility of the vocation they seek to celebrate.

Where spa days and pajamas—completely lovely as they are, I mean, please still book me a massage—might say to the mother “you need a break from all this mother stuff!” (and gosh, sometimes we really do!) I wanted to offer some gift ideas that tweak the narrative ever so slightly to instead assert “the work of motherhood is good and noble—and so much more expansive and impactful than our cultural caricatures would have us believe—and here is something to affirm it and memorialize it and bless it.”

Below is a small curation of Mother’s Day gifts to fit every budget (even the tiniest preschool piggy bank ones and the nonexistent toddler and baby ones…)

Something that grows

A bush, a shrub, a tree, a trio of herbs planted lovingly into a terra cotta pot! Living things speak directly to the dignity and growth a woman experiences in motherhood, which serving as a literal manifestation of the mother’s work of planting something she may not, likely will not, see come fully into fruition on earth. What’s more, certain trees and shrubs can truly, themselves, last for generations—a gift that gives season after season. My personal favorite, the peony, can faithfully bloom for 100 years.

And for the lover of containers, you can’t go wrong with a Bergs pot.

From tiny people with tiny budgets: Seed packets or a hand-painted flower pot.

Meaningful art

A painting or print of her favorite place, a pencil sketch that embodies the work of motherhood. Scour a thrift store or estate sale for old oil and watercolor paintings, or find a local artist and support their work.

I also love motherhood inspired prints from Lore Pemberton and Riley Sheehey’s Modern Motherhood series. A Mary Cassatt Print in a child-painted frame would be lovely, as well.

From tiny people with tiny budgets: Any handmade artwork by a child will always top any other gift on Mother’s Day!

Portraits, silhouettes or photographs

One investment we’re planning on in the quest to archive our family story are having portraits painted of our children when they reach a certain age (friends of mine who have done this recommend around age four or five). These can be quite pricey and so as an alternative I’ve loved the silhouettes we’ve had made from A Family Print Shop. And archival quality black and white family photos in a silver frame feel like little heirlooms in and of themselves.

Similarly, taking the time to pull together old prints in a family album or to have photos stuck in digital purgatory printed and frames or made into a book would be the most precious gift of time and effort.

From tiny people with tiny budgets: A self-portrait with a hand-painted wooden frame to match!

A family photo session

We’ve all seen the reels and memes of the photos moms take of dads with their kids looking tan, happy and in focus contrasted to the photos dads take of moms with their children in horrible poses, with eyes closed and multiple chins. And while this might be a slight exaggeration of reality, I maintain that the best money we spend every year is on having family photos taken by a professional. Our family photographer has become a dear friend and I treasure the moments we get to spend with her and the beautiful heirloom-quality photos we have from all the seasons of our family’s life.

From tiny people with tiny budgets: a promise of patience and authentic smiles and minimal whining…

Jewelry with a story

One of my favorite pieces is this compass necklace with each of my children’s initials. Understated jewelry with each child’s initials, birthstones, or even lockets with little silhouettes or photos inside are all sweet ideas that can be handed down. A simple gold cross or signet ring could also be worn and loved by generations.

From tiny people with tiny budgets: A little pinch pot for mom to keep her treasures in.

Solo time with each child

The easiest, cheapest and perhaps most meaningful item on this list. Moms of many know that spending time zeroing in on each child individually becomes more and more difficult as children grow and families expand. An afternoon tea date with your daughter, hike with your son, or trip to the playground with a coffee in hand where you can truly give your toddler your full attention is a gift, as is the simple joy of reading aloud without a constant eye on the newly mobile baby.

For tiny people with tiny budgets: Make cute coupons for these outings and compile them in a book.

Something to deepen a hobby or interest that can be passed down

I’ve always been inspired and challenged by the saying “they love what you love,” because it’s true! Second only to a spiritual legacy, the way we spend our days and the things we love and enjoy as mothers has a way of making its way into our children’s hearts. Like Macaulay said of her mother and Jesus, “I can see He made her glad.” The things children see make their mother glad will become a part of their happy memories, create something over which to bond as a family, and contribute to the architecting of a family culture. This may look like gardening gear, an art or cooking class, time to play tennis or walk or read or play music. For me it might take the form of some heritage breed small farm animals (ha!), or at least a new pair of wellies…

From tiny people with tiny budgets: Gardening gloves, a set of paints, or a fun how-to book on any given hobby—anything simple and small to help mom become more of who she was made to be through the things that bring her joy.

A lovely tea set

For welcoming friends and making everyday memories together, a beautiful tea set will evoke rich memories and a yearning for time spent together. These can be easily purchase secondhand or splurged upon to fit her tastes and your budget.

From tiny people with tiny budgets: A favorite tea to match. May I recommend…

A beautiful heirloom book or Bible:

A leather-bound family Bible to pass down as marked up as possible with prayers and convictions and dates in the margins, a Book of Common Prayer to guide prayer time in the home, or one of the volumes of ’s Every Moment Holy to reference for all of life’s little moments that require a liturgy.

Any volume from the series, ’s Summa Domestica and my friend ’s new book Motherhood and the Good Life would all make wonderful gifts, especially for the expecting, first time or young mother.

From tiny people with tiny budgets: A homemade bookmark to tuck inside.

Archival-quality family recipe book or journal:

In my quest to curate some sort of family cookbook to pass on when my children leave home and start families of their own, I treasure the recipe binder I found on Etsy for storing all of our favorites. This one from Rifle Paper Co. is darling and a simpler recipe journal from a favorite company, Write to Me, is also sweet.

Write to Me and Korie Herold also have lovely journals for tracking all of life’s milestones and moments.

Happy gifting and Happy Mother’s Day…this year may it help us to remember that one of our most precious heirlooms is the legacy we inherit from our mother.

I have noticed, as I’m sure you may have as well, over the course of the past several years a decided downtick in the quality of well, everything, coupled with a blasé attitude to match.

Like many mothers of young children with various nap and school run schedules, I have acquiesced almost entirely to grocery delivery to meet our family’s pantry-and-fridge-stocking needs.

Yet, nearly without fail, food arrives spoiled, missing, damaged or all of the above. Just last week, I received less than half of the food I had ordered on my doorstep and when I inquired the twenty-something shopper replied “O, wut r u missing?”

Oh nothing, sweet child, just the milk and the bread and my hope for the next generation.

In another instance, earlier this year I had purchased tickets via a reputable third party site for my daughter and husband to see a musical together and the tickets I received were for the complete wrong time. The company and the seller of the ticket both offered up half-hearted apologies with an inconvenient and unacceptable solution leaving me scrambling and shelling out more money so as to not disappoint an eager eight year-old who had been anticipating this date with her daddy for months.

These, and other little inconveniences in life are, of course, to be expected in a broken world and are in the grand scheme of things just not that big of a deal. There are far, far greater trials, challenges and issues to be concerned with and in prayer over. After all, we all make mistakes. We are all careless at times.

However…the fact that we have come to expected poor quality from brands, poor customer service from companies, poor manners at restaurants, poor dressing in airports (to go with the poor treatment of passengers from airline staff), poor conduct online and an up-and-coming generation many of whom can literally not make eye contact or carry on an adult conversation is indicative of a societal rot—a collective lack of care, attention to detail and pursuit of excellence.

And it has leaked into our parenting, too.

The absurdity of hot mess mom culture aside, we love to tell mothers and fathers that they are just doing their best. But sometimes, maybe many times…they are not. We are not. I certainly am not.

But our inevitable, very human falling short should not be perceived as a “Get Out of Trying Free” card.

And excellence in parenting is, above most things, something worth striving for.

Though it might erode our nervous systems to hear it, the stakes in child rearing are high and we should at the very least try our very best.

You know, “whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men.” (Col. 3:23)

One of a handful of books I try to re-read each year is The Duties of Parents by J.C. Ryle. Ryle was a British Anglican bishop of the evangelical persuasion and lays out in this short book—booklet or pamphlet, really—seventeen duties of parents in a straightforward, economical, no-nonsense manner that the busy modern parent with squeezed margins will appreciate.

We know that children typically behave best when they know and understand what is expected of them, I think for the parent it is no different. Ryle helps us as mothers and fathers see in a biblical context just what is ours to do in parenting and what is not. He encourages, challenges, admonishes parents to perform their duty to their children with excellence, not perfection.

And yet, Ryle doesn’t mince words, writing (in one version that is updated to modern English):

We depend, in a vast measure, on those who bring us up. We get from them a colour, a taste, a bias which clings to us, more or less, for the rest of our lives. We catch the language of our parents and those that look after us, and we learn to speak it almost without thinking about and questioning it. We catch something of their manners, ways and attitudes….

….And all this is one of God’s merciful arrangements. He gives our children a mind that will receive impressions like wet clay. He gives them a disposition at the starting point of their lives to believe what we tell them, to take for grated what we advise them, and to trust our word rather than a stranger’s. He gives us, in short, a golden opportunity for doing them good. Therefore, make sure that the opportunity is not missed and thrown away. Once let slip, it is gone for ever.

The stakes are, indeed, high, and so our striving for excellence as parents is a worthwhile pursuit, but as Ryle also reminds the parent:

God never laid a command on us which He would not then give us grace to perform…We have only to do as the servants were commanded at the marriage feast in Cana: to fill the water pots with ware, and then we may safely leave it to Jesus to turn that water into wine.

You can order a hard copy here, or find it free of charge online.

And now, onto our round up…

On the top of my (forever growing) bedside stack: Spring by Michael Morpurgo and the new Lilias Trotter biography, If Only We Could See by …

…followed by these two classics on angels and community.

Loved reading ’s evocative, poignant words on Eastertide.

A beautiful Eastertide book for you and one for them, too.

Bookmarking these 10 Nostalgic Easter Recipes That’ll Take You Back to Grandma’s Table for next year…or maybe next weekend?

This was a lovely, thoughtful reflection worth reading from

I’ve been eyeing these (sold out) gardening overalls, when my dear friend (hi, Susan!!) sent me this cute pair which get the job done at a fraction of the price.

How to feed your kid like a 90’s mom by at

A refreshingly earnest account of pregnancy, motherhood, loss and hope from .

Things to Do with Kids (From My Mom's 1975 Junior League Cookbook) by at

Loved this take from of on marking rites of passage in the family....

…and speaking of, here are my favorite journals for recording them all (their new “keepcase” is adorable, too).

I put these in the kids’ Easter baskets (along with these cross bracelets that would be great for a VBS or kids camp) and they are like cleaner, more durable, not as razor sharp pipe cleaners perfect for eternally crafting kids like mine.

What Is a Forever Home? by Steele Marcoux at Veranda — I’m encouraged to see a leading home design publication leaning into the concept of longevity and legacy in homes versus the churn and burn cycle of unsustainable “what’s in, what’s out” fleeting design trends.

We just watched this documentary with architect Gil Schafer on Unlocking the Mysteries of Place is a fascinating look into his brilliant classically-inspired design mind.

called out ’s new collection for Olive Ateliers and it’s perfect (also check out their Mother’s Day Gift Guide…so good)

Making this immediately when we move back into our home to break in the new range.

Until next time!

(We) always,

Julie

There exists an invisible cultural current doggedly determined to erase the traditions we uphold, an anonymous prevailing narrative that suggests that progress means constantly bending to the whims of our cultural moment, that we know better than anyone in the past ever did, and that if one doesn’t change with “the times,” one is behind.

Whether it is our farming methods and means for obtaining food, our worship, or the tools we use to create, there is a general assumption that changing, or at least “improving upon” what has always been is the correct and only way forward.

And then, there is the first full week in April at Augusta National.

I sat down with my husband the other night after everyone was tucked in bed and we flicked on a buzzy Youtube explainer on The Masters and all that goes into preparing for the most iconic long weekend in sports. There were a tight shots of Bentgrass greens manicured within a millimeter of perfection, drone footage of those iconic green and white umbrellas looking straight out of a Slim Aarons photograph, and, of course, the coveted $1.50 pimento cheese sandwiches—meticulously stacked—all of it a fascinating peek behind the curtain of something that transcends the title of mere sporting event in favor of that of an enduring American tradition.

And we love an enduring tradition here in America, don’t we?

Take, for example, when Cracker Barrel changed their logo to a more streamlined (read: boring) version last summer, even trying to pass it off as more rooted and closer to the original logo, national backlash all but forced them to change it right back and issue an apology for being so shortsighted.

Many of us likely heard or read about this story because of its sort of kitschy, nostalgic, and generally innocent nature. Yet, most news headlines tend toward stories that discard tradition in favor of progress while casually ignoring the often inevitable backlash that so many attempts to upend tradition are often met with. We have seen this across the board—in the church, in politics, in medicine, in education and in food.

And sure, in many instances, improving upon old ways of doing things is right and good—take modern medical advances, life-saving or enhancing technologies (though highly subjective), and the deconstruction of systems and beliefs that undermine the value and dignity of human life, for example. Tradition for tradition’s sake, like all things not oriented toward an ultimate End, is pointless.

But good and meaningful traditions are paramount in constructing a collective culture. They anchor time, point us toward that which is deeply meaningful, highlight common values, draw us together and offer a sense of belonging and shared identity. And so, how much more when it comes to building a family culture that will withstand the test of time, last generations and serve as a trellis upon which faith and virtue might grow, must the architecture of our traditions endure.

Living according to traditions is biblical and distinctly human. Our recent walk through Holy Week and the Last Supper is a very present reminder of what Jesus asked his followers to do with frequency and repetition as a communal act of worship.

Creation itself bursts with its own traditions, its own seasonal liturgies as we are being presently reminded with the dawn of new life in springtime once again.

There is a reason why young people are flocking back to liturgical faith traditions, and why the sheen of modern choose-your-own-adventure worship has dulled for many as rising generations are awakening to a new, yet ancient and rooted way to worship and to live that reflects the way we were made at a cellular level.

Okay, so what does any of this have to do with golf?

No other sporting event, and I might go so far as to argue no other American cultural event, seeks to and succeeds at preserving traditions more effectively—and beautifully— than The Masters (always on CBS). And my fascination with and study of this weekend has revealed how enduring traditions are defined by five things that might help us as we consider our own family traditions, whether of the liturgical, seasonal, or everyday persuasion.

Below, is a sort of part two to a post I wrote last year on The Masters and great traditions, which narrows in on what makes a tradition last.

Five Characteristics of Enduring Traditions, According to The Masters

Enduring traditions include an element of exclusivity

Now bear with me for a moment, I’m not referring to the snooty, “you can’t sit with us” type of exclusivity—though Augusta National’s highly selective membership and The Masters’ ticket lottery system does give that vibe—but rather the special, set apart, “can only get it here,” glimmer of a moment. If you want to purchase Masters merch, you have to be there, in person—it isn’t sold online. In a time of insta-everything, this makes a statement: this hat/polo/tote bag/umbrella is special because you can only get it one place, on one weekend, if you are lucky enough to be there. It is not readily available, it is not on Amazon, it cannot be Instacarted to your door. Augusta National is also literally likely the only place left in the United States where you can purchase lunch for $1.50. When patrons step foot inside the gates of Augusta National, there is a sense that something very special is unfolding here, and that it is a gift to be a part of it. If any defining element of being a guest at The Masters—the food, the merch, the azaleas—were readily available with a click of the button, it simply wouldn’t mean as much.

With family traditions it is the same. When we only sing Christmas carols during the Twelve Days of Christmas, only eat a special birthday cake on a family birthday plate on birthdays, only flower a cross outside of church on Easter, we are signaling that these moments are set apart, only coming around once a year, or once in a lifetime—and that makes them hold so much more weight. A Christmas pudding just doesn’t taste quite right in July and setting the table with an elaborate floral tablescape fit for a Resurrection feast on the most casual of Tuesday evenings quickly erodes and sense of holiness.

When my kids inevitably ask me after any major (or minor) holiday or their birthdays, why it can’t be (fill in the blank) every day, I gently remind them with the same refrain: because then it wouldn’t be special.

With great traditions, the experience is exclusive to this season, this day, this moment.

Enduring traditions offer a multi-sensory familiarity

Traditions are, by definition, repeated in rhythm. Whether annual or daily, they can be counted on to come around again and be instantly recognizable for the moment or occasion they represent. Even for those of us who have never been to The Masters (I, dear reader, somewhat regrettably asked my husband to turn down a ticket last year due to a certain newborn babe) the azaleas, the yellow logo, the umbrellas, the sandwiches, the trophy, the green jacket, the hush and subsequent polite applause of the patrons all appeal to various senses as they evoke memories of Masters’ past.

Certain faith traditions—the Catholic Church comes to mind—have specific traditions surrounding the very difficult, highly emotional and devastating human rite of passage that is passing from our world into the eternal. Catholic funeral traditions are executed with unwavering predictability and it is precisely because of their familiarity that families and loved ones can be free to fully grieve without considering what should be done. The traditions are in place, they are expected and they offer the opportunity for an embodied experience that meets our embodied souls.

It sounds obvious, but consider any favorite childhood tradition—a scorching Fourth of July, popsicle in hand, fireworks bursting overhead, or waking up Christmas morning to the whole house smelling of cinnamon rolls, the sound of your parents scuffling about downstairs and the anticipation of what awaits—all of them engaging all of your senses in the same way they did last year and the year before, because before our brains can comprehend, our bodies remind us what’s happening and why it matters.

Enduring traditions require great intentionality

In watching the aforementioned Masters explainer on Youtube, it was stunning to witness the deep intentionality that goes into planning each and every aspect of the biggest week in golf. From heaters that help the iconic azaleas bloom exactly on time and an underground system that keeps soil moisture levels optimal to a clean up crew that grabs trash before it has a chance to touch the ground and 2,500 hidden security personnel, the orchestrating of every small detail behind the scenes in order to execute a meaningful and celebratory moment not unlike a mother on the eve of Christmas or a birthday, bustling around, anticipating needs, hoping to surprise and delight her children and family.

Simply put, creating and maintaining family traditions that will endure is a lot of work. It requires planning, thoughtfulness, time, focused attention, remembering, note-taking, and archiving those memories for future year and future generations. And, like most good things, there really isn’t an easy way around it. Which is not to say that we should run ourselves ragged or introduce traditions far to complex to be continued year-over-year, but rather to assert the worth it-ness of it all and that good, intentional work births good and beautiful things.

Enduring traditions have an element of gravity, levity or both

At The Masters, the levity comes in the form of the 50-year tradition of skipping balls across the water on the 16th hole during practice rounds and the exceedingly adorable Par 3 Contest, where the players are often accompanied by their wives and children-turned-caddies as they don white jumpsuits with their last name on the back.

The gravity, of course, is that final walk up the 18th fairway. The green jacket ceremony has both—the glory of the victory and the relief that comes with it.

We see these two opposites meeting and offering an ordered and intentional contrast to one another throughout the course of the church year—The stillness of Advent is answered with the jubilance of Christmas, our Lenten fast broken by a glorious Easter feast (and bells if you can get yourself to an Easter vigil!), saints’ feast days, when we celebrate and remember their life, are typically commemorated on the day of their death when they entered into glory.

Great, enduring traditions transcend our normal emotional experience and we feel the weight of them, whether on the mountaintop or in the valley.

Enduring traditions consider legacy, or what might be handed down and how

The Masters has endured more or less in its current form for 90 years. Small traditions have been added here and there and course conditions improved upon, but April at Augusta has maintained and impressive consistency over decades and generations.

The only thing that changes are the players, their caddies and the patrons. In other words—the people. And one way The Masters keeps continuity even as golf’s #1 changes by the year is by honoring and bringing together the generations. From the Champions Dinner to the amateurs hosted in the Crow’s Nest to former Masters victors opening up the tournament with ceremonial drives (heartwarming).

What’s more, the sheer volume of intentional, meaningful and enduring traditions, large and small, that earned the tournament the tagline “a tradition unlike any other” creates an allure that can’t help but be continued on, a snowball effect as one year builds upon another, crafting a story far bigger than any individual golfer, no matter how great. The Masters and Augusta itself is the star of the show. The players simply bit parts. And that’s a good thing.

Family life shifts and changes much more quickly than any young mom whose days revolve around diapers and naptime might realize (“The days are long but the years are short, you know!”—and dangit, the lady behind you in the grocery store was right) and sooner or later one generation gives way to the next, children and then grandchild become parents themselves and how in the world do you maintain a cohesive family identity, sense of belonging and earnest dedication to faith when times and toddlers are changing so fast?

First, by gathering consistently—I have heard the art of doing so beautifully called “kinkeeping”—and walking through the trials and triumphs as a multi-generational unit.

And then, by architecting the rhythms of life in a way that provides a consistent reminder of who we are (both as a family and as individuals who are part of that family) and whose we are (God’s children who He has graciously invited into the story He is writing) and thereby creating an heirloom family culture worthy of our posterity and the family of faith we have been mercifully adopted into.

I love the idea of repeating a menu for big holidays year over year—a beef Wellington always on Christmas, a certain heart-shaped sugar cookies always for Valentine’s Day, a flag ice box cake and fun pasta salad always for the Fourth of July, etc. etc. This is a big part of building a “we always” family culture, as food with its multi-sensory appeal and the memories made gathering around the table have a way of piercing the fabric of time, providing annual, mini-portals through which we may travel back and grasp a happy and holy moment.

(Tip: I purchased this fun binder and corresponding dividers to store and organize our family recipes)

For Easter, the biggest and most important feast and celebration of them all for the Christian home, we’ve relied on our trusty scalloped potatoes, ham, green beans, deviled eggs and fluffy rolls for dinner prefaced by Resurrection Rolls before church and a cinnamon roll, breakfast casserole and candied bacon for brunch. But what for the dessert? Last year in a spurt of newly postpartum creativity and energy, I decided that, for our family, it would be a lamb cake.

I could think of nothing more whimsical, nostalgic and celebratory—yet deeply symbolic and spiritually significant—to honor the Paschal Lamb on the day of His glorious Resurrection.

The tradition of an Easter lamb cake has German and Polish roots, and spread to the United States through European immigrants where it enjoyed popularity in mid-century American homes with the rise of domestic culture.

And while lamb cake culture has waned significantly, it has experienced somewhat of a renaissance as of late thanks in part to viral lamb cake Pinterest fails, Martha’s seal of approval, and, perhaps (I hope) a collective return to tradition and intention in the food we make and the ways we celebrate the feasts, observe fasts, and walk through the seasons of the year.

Here’s how we make ours:

The most critical element of any lamb cake construction is, well, the Lamb Cake Pan. We have this aluminum one from Nordic Ware (first produced by the company in the 1940’s!) and it has worked perfectly so far.

We largely follow Nordic Ware’s lamb cake recipe, but I wanted to call out a few key things to ensure your lamb cake baking and decorating success:

1. When they indicate buttering the entirety of the pan to be very important, they mean it! Every nook and cranny must. be. greased, or else your poor dense and chocolately lamb might be missing its muzzle, or an ear! Also, we only fill half of the pan—not both sides! And the mold should be placed face down and that side filled.

2. For the cocoa powder used for dusting, Guittard’s Cocoa Rouge cocoa powder has never let me down in this instance, or in stovetop hot cocoa on snow days.

3. Getting the base cake part of the lamb just right can be a bit tricky, so it’s best to wait to involve young children until the decorating part. Once the cake has cooled, been masterfully extracted from the mold, and secured onto a platter using a thick icing or frosting, the sky’s the limit. In the past, we have piped the “wool” onto our lamb using a thick buttercream (hint: it is important to make enough in one batch for the entirety of the lamb, or you’ll end up with some odd color variance from batch to batch based on various conditions, and also, it must be cold—take care to refrigerate as needed as frosting starts to melt and run. It also helps to refrigerate the cake itself before decorating), use black royal icing for the darling squinty eyes, a pink jelly bean for the nose and shredded coconut colored with natural green food dye for the grass. Many traditional lamb cakes also boast a red ribbon or bow around the neck to symbolize Christ’s sacrifice and a flag with a cross to commemorate His victory over death.

4. Let the toddler in your life have the very important job of dyeing said coconut grass by dumping the shreds in a Ziploc along with the dye and shaking to their heart’s content.

5. Keep refrigerated until about 2-3 hours before your big Easter meal (this cake doubles as a great centerpiece!) and then bask in the glory of the memories made in the great feast and celebrations of the risen King!

Also, try to remember that the sort of “off-ness” of the lamb cake is part of the whole charm of it all. Those Pinterest fails went viral for a reason and yours, like mine, will not be perfect either (and what do you know, Jesus still died and rose for you!)

Finally, no Easter food post would be complete without my mentioning the most epic of Easter traditions television specials—one that feels old school and nostalgic in the very best (British) way…

Mary Berry’s Easter Feasts (two parts!) is the most charming and fun and includes a visit to the Anglican cathedral that was supposedly home to the OG hot cross bun before showing us how to make her “heavily fruited, luxury bun.”

I have always been a Berry fan, but hadn’t realized she was rooted in a strong Christian faith until this particular special, and it was fascinating to learn about how Christians of various denominations across Britain celebrate the highest holy day of the Christian year. There is also a beautiful moment in which the gospel is preached so explicitly you almost can’t believe this was aired on British TV. 10/10 recommend.

Happy Baking & Lamb Cake Decorating!

I pushed aside a pile of school papers in an organizing spree the other day (having just returned from a spring break trip to the temporary space we are living in, disorder barely began to describe the state of things) to reveal a printed out, half-colored “Alleluia” banner. The one that was supposed to be buried on Shrove Tuesday.

Just like we were supposed to bake soft pretzels.

Just like we were supposed to keep up with that devotional.

And fill up the alms jar.

And water our resurrection garden (we’re planting it this weekend, promise!)

But here’s the thing…

I’m tired.

Like really tired.

We have four children eight and under, including a nursing baby and a toddler who counts as at least three additional children (bless her). We are renovating our home (this is a massive undertaking—effectively a full-time job). We’re at the height of everything in the life of a young family: babies! toddlers! school! work! friends! house stuff! We are still young but not that young. We are living our life and making a life, building this plane as it flies.

It’s full and beautiful and exhausting.

And while I believe—truly and deeply—that the traditions and family culture we build in the little years can uphold a family of faith for generations, there needs to be a back-up plan for when going full-throttle in this area is simply not an option.

Ever since my twenties, I’ve been a fearful flyer. (God, with His sense of humor and tendency to place us in situations in which we must rid ourselves of silly fears, once had me flying to Cambodia in a typhoon on September 11…) Yet, it gives me strange confidence to know that planes were designed to be able to keep flying even if, say, one engine catches on fire, or something. This scenario is, of course, far from ideal (I mean, could you imagine…) but there are plans in place to keep everything moving forward and get to the destination.

When intense seasons of life happen—when there is a new baby, or a household sickness that never seems to end, or a family tragedy or crisis, or extensive work travel and on and on—it is important to have a stripped down, pared back version of your family traditions to turn to. To hone in on what is most important, to your children, to you, and to the memories you are making together as a family.

Just like our plane example with the flaming engine (just writing this makes me sweat), this family culture contingency plan might be far from ideal. Not something to strive for, but something good enough. Something that keeps your family on track and headed to the destination that is the vision you uphold for life together.

A few thoughts to this end in the form of three strategies we lean on in less-than-ideal seasons:

First, know what matters most to your kids— I can’t tell you the number of times I have asked my children what they love most about this season or that holiday and their response absolutely floors me. What? I do all these intentional things and you only remember how we did this other, seemingly small and random thing?

What matters to you may not matter to them, which does not mean you should abandon all other traditions and efforts in favor of their little desires (you are, after all, steering the ship of your family’s culture), but it can shed light on what should be prioritized in harder seasons.

A couple of weeks ago was my daughter’s half birthday, a day we try to celebrate in some small fun way since a year is so long for a little kid to wait for their next big day. I had cinnamon rolls sorted for breakfast and was planning to make homemade Chipwiches for dessert. A herculean effort, it seemed, in my own weary eyes. Yet, as I got up from my work on the couch and tidied a few final toys before heading up to bed, I paused by the breakfast table in our rental home—bare, bland, and not ours. I put myself in her shoes ( writes beautifully on the practice of doing so here) and imagined her nightgown clad, Belle-loving, 8.5 year old self walking groggily downstairs in the morning, so excited to finally be eight and a HALF only to sit down for breakfast as this bare, unfamiliar table and then promptly mustered five minutes’ worth of energy to hang a little flag banner across the window behind, throw on a cream table cloth with sweet pink flowers, put a little vase of tulips and daffodils in the middle (sorry, Lent!) and printed off a “Happy 1/2 Birthday” sign I made in less than two minutes on Canva to lean against it.

She was utterly delighted in the morning, made to feel like the precious treasure she is to our family and to God. And I felt a little less like a garbage mom for not getting to the soft pretzels and the Alleluia banner (ha!)

Now, lest you assume I’m preaching works-based motherhood with a side of guilt-ridden night sweats, dear reader I am not.

I’m simply suggesting that there is an inherently rewarding feeling to having cared well for your family, made them feel known and loved and produced those glowing, golden moments that make up a childhood memory bank so joyful, so rich that their little hearts will have no choice but to praise the Lord for the home life He gave to them.

Second, lower barriers to entry — The only reason I was able to pull off a very last-minute 1/2 birthday celebration for my daughter was because I was (relatively) prepared. We have a birthday box filled with banners and crowns, silver candle holders, balloons and various other heirloom-quality decor that we can use again and again, eliminating the need for last-minute Amazon orders while at the same time helping to craft the childhood birthday nostalgia that comes only from faithful repetition — of traditions, of decor, of meals and of prayers. I also make it a habit to keep a record of the traditions we do for every celebration— liturgical or otherwise— around the year, along with notes for next year. This takes the form of a binder, divided seasonally, that I can reference and add to year over year with the things we always do from recipes to outings to gatherings to liturgies surrounding various holy days and holidays.

And we’re still building! With every year of repeated traditions and memories made, it gets easier and easier to keep them going as the rhythms of our year together as a family in our communities becomes increasingly on autopilot.

Finally, refrain from the need or desire to constantly reinvent the wheel — At the risk of sounding like a broken record, so much of creating faith-filled and meaningful traditions is there for us in the historical rhythms of the church year. In any given season, you can take or leave any given tradition, but they will be right there for you to pick up the next year or the year after that.

The tradition of burying the Alleluia isn’t going anywhere, and our faithful observance of the resurrection as a family certainly isn’t dependent on us engaging in that fun little tradition. Christian traditions are there to enhance our devotions, to draw us deeper into the story of Christ in the context of community, and the cycles of light and life will be there next year to remind us and to invite us into participation in traditions of old.

Similarly, when we are weary from the day-to-day of a stressful season, tried-and-true traditions that have been practiced for hundreds of years are easy to reach for. There are an increasing number of writers and creators who are creating books and bodies of work dedicated to liturgical living, offering a robust suite of ideas and inspiration to draw from in moments of either quiet desperation or when inspiration and energy levels may spike.

Regardless of the season of life in which you and your family find yourselves, the traditions we keep should be a natural overflowing and reflection of the love and warmth and faith the home is built upon, and it is only then when the things we always do are able to morph seamlessly into memories that will bolster and encourage the faithful hearts of our children when they are grown and have families of their own.

Tell me, what are your best memory making hacks in hard seasons? Share in the comments below!

Happy Laetare Sunday! Meaning rejoice! in Latin, this day marks a turning point in our Lenten season, a rose-hued mini-feast in the long journey toward Eastertide. Like the weather (at least here in Virginia) there is the slightest hint of the coming joy of spring, even as our alleluia remains restrained and we continue to reach for winter coats for early morning school drop-offs.

In England, today is also Mothering Sunday (you should have been my husband’s face when I asked him this morning what we got me for British Mother’s Day…dear reader, it was priceless). Historically, since the Middle Ages, Christians would return this day to the church of their baptism, and usually of their childhood—their “mother church.”

Several years ago, when we were in the midst of a painful season of repeated early pregnancy loss and discerning a major move, we stole away to a cute little beach cottage in Isle of Palms, South Carolina over the Easter holiday. Much of life was in limbo and we found ourselves in the wake of the pandemic without a mother church of our own, trying to piece together a semblance of home—physically and spiritually.

A quick internet search of Lowcountry Anglican churches (of which there are many) revealed that one large congregation held an outdoor Easter service on a breathtaking historic plantation. We put on our new Easter clothes, grabbed a blanket from our AirBnb and set off for what would become one of our most memorable church experiences to date—a service so rich in liturgy and history yet so alive with the Spirit, and a balm to our souls in a season of watching pink lines on pregnancy tests fade away along with the hope our hearts carried with them.

Liturgy offers us this privilege: to be spiritually home and with family no matter where in the world we find ourselves. And while no building can match, perhaps, the nostalgia of the church of our youth, the rhythms of the church year remind us that we needn’t remain untethered even in tabernacle seasons.

We returned to South Carolina for the first time in four years this year for our kids’ early school spring break with two additional precious souls in tow—one of whom will turn one on Easter, a redemptive full circle moment, to be sure—and though it is not our home or even a place we visit with any meaningful regularity, it felt like the strangest homecoming.

The palm trees and hundreds year-old oaks dressed to the nines in Spanish moss like an old southern gentleman in his Sunday best brought back the memory of that brilliant Easter morning that carried us in a desert season, reminding us of where our true rest and refreshment is found and how, surrounded by a thousand strangers in an unfamiliar church but with that same, familiar Anglican liturgy, our hearts could be at home.

Today’s round-up features posts and provisions for your mothering heart, your wayward heart, your restless heart, and, hopefully—on this special day of the church year—your rejoicing heart.

Happy reading…and rejoice!

As a recovering English major, I’m starting my first non-fiction read in years and hoping it lives up to the hype.

This is also on my Lenten reading list at the recommendation of Denise Trull.

Good Books for Girls by at

What is a man? by at (local friends, he will also be speaking at UVa this week on a compelling topic).

Stories That Never Happen by at — Really excellent conviction sandwich.

My husband and I started this book together and it’s a wonderful, easy read on a theology of health and fitness— you can read an excerpt here from .

of gives us a great primer on St. Patrick as well as some beautiful children’s books about our favorite bishop of Ireland.

This piece from of on curating a springtime liturgical binder has so many wonderful ideas. We keep a binder for liturgy and tradition in our home, too. Let me know in the comments if you’re interested in learning more about how we do it!

How to Have More Fun as an Adult by at — I have been thinking about this topic so much as our fourth baby’s first birthday draws near. Is it time for mom to get back on the horse? Like literally and figuratively?

Speaking of fun, I’m putting a hidden desk in our breakfast room during our renovation and I don’t care how 90’s it is…

The Legacy-Minded Mother’s Guide to March (from the LoO archives)

Our new favorite movie night pick.

Fear in the Home: How it Shapes Children and What Helps by at

Small decisions that make a home feel designed—not just decorated by at — on my brain mid-renovation

This is changing the baby self-feeding game in our home.

The perfect March candle.

Just thrifted A Continual Feast and it’s a lovely celebration of traditions in food and faith.

Every Forever Home Needs a “House Kit”—Here’s What Needs to Go in Yours by Lauren Wicks at Veranda — loved this look into ’s must-haves for her home.

Happy first Sunday Monday of Lent! (We do what we can…)

If you, like me, also broke your family fast within the first two days, congratulations! You’re human.

But God is good, and all we can do is try again. After all, Lent—like all seasons of the church calendar—is for our own spiritual growth and formation, as God remains the same.

The other day, a friend from a “non-liturgical” denomination, called into question the “why” behind Lent. She wondered, “Shouldn’t we be living this way all the time (giving alms and the like)?” and “Shouldn’t we simply be led to fast and pray by the Holy Spirit, not the season?”

To which I might answer, yes, and that’s why we need a season like Lent.

If, for you, Lent feels legalistic—like a set of rules you must follow—or is an excuse to act in a Christian way when you otherwise do not or a chance to reinvigorate New Years goals, you’re doing it wrong.

Liturgical living is not rote traditionalism for traditions’s sake, but rather about defying the arrogance of the age that we know better, do better, and pray better, and instead bending our ear and our days to the wisdom of saints who have gone before, right back to the early church and the apostles.

Lent is not a prison, it’s an invitation.

The reality is this: We are all patterning our life and our days after something. Some sort of calendar, cultural expectations or traditions, some sort of liturgy for living.

Take, for example, the largely evangelical notion of a “morning quiet time.”

This is a time when you are supposed to wake up before your children (even your newborn when you have no idea when they will actually wake up on any given day!), grab some bible highlighters and your bible and your journal and maybe some special stickers and a hot coffee and spend an hour or so with the Lord in prayer and in deep study.

Be sure, also, to also make a hot breakfast before your children get up. Does you’re newborn wake up at 5 am? Your alarm must now be set for 3 am (because of the long quiet time, you see…)

In all seriousness, a quiet time like this at the start of each day sounds lovely, and, as a young professional with no children and all the time in the world, I did used to start my day this way many mornings! But this isn’t my reality in the present season nor is it reality for most moms that I know. Yet, the women in my life are living faithful, spiritually vibrant lives in spite of not adhering perfectly, if at all, to this particular practice.

And that’s because the idea of a “morning quiet time” is a fairly new construct of what it looks like to worship God well in largely non-liturgical, American evangelical churches.

Yet, it is a type of liturgy in and of itself.

The truth is, we’re all subscribing to some pattern of life and living.

Do I believe in the value of prayer and scripture first thing for a Christian? You bet. And I’ve done my best to make it a habit to open my Daily Office app and pray through Morning Prayer for 10 minutes or so while nursing the baby (with coffee, actually) in this busy, full season of motherhood and family life with little margin.

But there are many ways to give the first hour of the day to the Lord.

Back to Lent…an ancient (truly, ancient!) practice to prepare ourselves for the resurrection within the context of community, together as the Church.

Because, as the pastor at our church in the DC area before we moved reminded our parish often, “We are not ourselves, by ourselves.”

Personally, observing the church calendar and practicing liturgical living in our home has given me a framework, a trellis, if you will, upon which to construct the spiritual life of our home and support the catechism of our children in a holistic way that is supported by and in tandem with our faith community.

To me, this feels very much the way the Christian life was meant to be lived. Generations upon generations of the faithful—across many denominations—would agree.

So, should we pray without ceasing? Yes!

Should we be a cheerful giver in all things? Being generous with all we’ve been given and feeding the hungry and clothing the naked and tending the sick? Also yes.

Should we fast alongside focused prayer certain times? Yes!

And as such, Lent reminds us—with our wayward and forgetful hearts—to return to these practices, together, and I’m very grateful for it.

And with that, onto our round-up!

All of Those Undone Days by at —“This is the pain of my passing days, of the unrepeatable nature of life, of the sense that sand is slipping through the timer too quickly, and I don’t get to invert it again. This ache can be measured in the photographs of my children’s younger days, in the shock of their infant voices in snatches of family videos, the little cameo appearances that memories and moments make when I least expect them, stripping my heart that all this time has passed.” This was deeply hopeful.

At Home Days by at Hearthstone Fables—A friend and I were just talking about the effort required to maintain a thriving community life and I love the idea of reinvigorating the Victorian tradition of holding official visiting hours once a week. Kind of like professors’ university office hours, but for homebodies and local communities. Will be implementing when we move back into our home post-reno!

The Woman Who Invented the Cotswolds by at —peak aspirational British country everything, a great just for fun read to save for a slow Sunday afternoon.

Senator Ben Sasse, who was diagnosed with advanced pancreatic cancer just before this past Christmas, gave this arresting recent interview to Sola Media and I can’t stop thinking about the wisdom in his words, the kind we are, perhaps, only privileged to when facing our “final enemy” as Sasse rightly names death. has a great reflection on the interview in their recent piece The Bright Sadness of Ben Sasse.

Ash Wednesday: A Heart-Grief Rent by Lanier Ivester at : “The imposition of ashes symbolizes the impermanence of this mortal life and the repentance requisite to keep us in the way of love. For we are all prodigal by nature, prone to wander, quick to forget. But Ash Wednesday can be a turning point, a chance to change direction. It offers us the option to consider our ways and turn homeward”

The Devotional Trap by at : "…you don’t need another devotional. What you need is to feel comfortable in solitude with Christ. You need to learn how Jesus communed with God and take His example as your own.”

My favorite children’s books for Lent + reading through Lent with Maria von Trapp

I’m drinking this tea on repeat and recommending it to everyone I can. It’s almost like spring is here and we’re sitting in a meadow of wildflowers. Almost.

All Creatures Great and Small just wrapped its 6th season and I am unwell. I write about how much I love and learn from it here and recommend watching immediately if you have not! Save it for Sunday and it will help you through Lent & February/March, etc.

Someday, I’ll be the Memory by —"Some day, I will be the memory. If I remain planted in the house of the Lord, the fruit of those memories will be the kind that I long for. Hopeful. Joyful. Honest. And pointing my all of my grandchildren to Christ.” Oof. Thank you for this, Heather.

A fun family guide for Lent—we have adopted the “sacrificial bean jar” idea as a way for our kids to give alms. On Easter, the beans in the jar are converted into dollars to bring to church and jelly beans to eat!

A dear friend and a teacher recently recommended the Betsy-Tacy series to us and they look incredibly sweet! also recommends it in her read-aloud round-up here.

Finally, this moving note on motherhood was making its rounds on Substack for good reason.

Starting to dream about (re)decorating our home and loving the old-fashioned charm of these soap balls and dish for a powder room.

Speaking of dreaming…gardening (and baby chick!) season is practically upon us! We’ve been watching British presenter, author, Country Living UK columnist and smallholder farmer Sally Coulthard’s Youtube series The New Good Life and now I need ducks…

And finally, not a link, exactly, but our renovation has me thinking so much about the physical spaces we inhabit—functionally, aesthetically, and spiritually. Thinking of starting a sister newsletter to Liturgy of Ours that would be what LoO is to meaningful traditions, liturgical living and family culture, to the physical spaces in which all of those things we always do unfold—The Family Home. The backdrop of our lives. A collection of both practical and metaphorical explorations of the various parts of the home and how they support and enhance family life on many levels. Maybe even mini home tours of some of our favorite Legacy-Minded Mothers™?

We shall see…until next time!

(We) always,

Lent is typically understood by the broader culture as a season of subtraction as we fast from common vices—sweets or alcohol or scrolling our screens. It is prefaced by Shrove Tuesday, a time of indulgence (often in pancakes!) before dunking the last of the Valentine’s Day sweets in the trash. Traditionally, Christians would fast from rich foods—sugar, dairy, meat—and so these were used up before the 40-day penitential period began.

And then there is the culturally lesser known Lenten pillar of almsgiving, the spiritual discipline of giving to the poor or performing acts of charity.

But what to fill the void in all of this going without and giving away? A renewed and refocused prayer life, to be sure—another pillar of the season. Room for God to do His work of conviction and restoration in our hearts as we return to Him. Silence that, perhaps, gives way to a quiet reckoning of the soul. And, according to Maria von Trapp, books. Good, mind-sharpening, soul-expanding, heart-swelling books.

In Around the Year with the von Trapp Family, the von Trapp family matriarch herself writes of her family Lent:

The time saved through abstention from movies—and it is astonishing to find how much it is! —will be devoted to a carefully chosen reading program.

She suggests three types of reading material, in addition to the reading of scripture, to accompany the believer through the Lenten season:

Something for the mind: “This should mean doing serious research”

Something for the soul: “This should be spiritual reading of a high order”

Something for the heart: “…the biographies of people who started out as we did but had their minds set on following the word of Our Lord”

Might I offer some tried-and-true favorites in each category to accompany your Lenten journey this year, geared specifically to the mother, but beneficial to any of us who might be seeking to replace habits of distraction with focused study, grounded devotions, and inspirational stories of the saints who have gone before…

For the mind

This year, I’ll hyper-focus my research on the very topic of this Substack—liturgical living, family traditions, etc. for the purposes of a book I hope to write and curate that expands upon and elevates what I’ve been writing here (publishing friends tell me I must build an “audience” first, so accept my shameless request for your likes and shares, as they will help us get to said book that I hope will be a blessing to the family who is crafting their culture, forming meaningful traditions and living a liturgical and legacy-minded life). I’ve curated books lists here and here of my favorites.

The below titles are also on my list for this year on theology, parenting, angels (can we talk more about angels, please?!), and Christian virtue.

Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton

The Duties of Parents by JC Ryle (if only I had bypassed all those other parenting books and just read this instead! Short and to the point and I re-read every year)

Angels: God’s Secret Agents by Billy Graham

The Art of Living: The Cardinal Virtues and the Freedom to Love by Edward Sri

After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters by N.T. Wright

For the soul

The Interior Castle by St. Teresa of Avila

Virtue and Vice: A Dictionary of the Good Life (excerpts from the works of C.S. Lewis)

A Diary of Private Prayer by John Bailie (my absolute favorite prayer companion aside from the Book of Common Prayer

Hinds Feet on High Places by Hannah Hurnard

An Introduction to the Devout Life by St. Francis de Sales

For the heart

The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom

Bright Legacy: Portraits of Ten Outstanding Christian Women

The Story of a Family: The Home of St. Therese of Lisieux by Stephane-Joseph Piat

Devoted: Great Men and Their Godly Moms by Tim Challies

The Tapestry: The Life and Times of Francis and Edith Schaeffer by Edith Schaeffer

The Lifegiving Home by and (rereading this year!)

May your Lenten season be blessed with quiet enough to make room for the wisdom of the saints and, more importantly, still small voice of God.

The story of St. Valentine tells of a (real) third century priest who defied an order by Roman Emperor Claudius II to ban marriages for young men, marrying Christian couples in secret. Because much of the lore surrounding his life and deeds remains unverified, St. Valentine’s Day was removed from the official church calendar of the Catholic Church in 1969. Still, there is much we can learn from the martyr for Christ and champion for Christian love, and teach our children about godly love and charity as we honor his legacy.

Ever since the Victorians set us on the path toward the uber-commercialized and secularized Valentine’s Day as we know it (though the elaborate handmade valentines the Victorians would make for one another often depicted churches or other pious imagery to assert pure or holy intentions), the holiday has been increasingly reduced to cheesy cards, jacked up prix fixe menus and cheap boxes of chocolate that can be found at your local CVS for $7.99 next to the toothpaste aisle.

Yet, for the Christian family, every holiday—even those paraliturgical celebrations that sit outside of the church calendar—presents an opportunity to cultivate traditions that orient our hearts heavenward. We can and should meaningfully infuse the secular with the spiritual especially when it comes to secularized holidays of Christian origin.

Here’s how we celebrate on February 14th in our home:

Beginning February 1st, we write attributes or virtues we love about our kids on cut out paper hearts or doilies and stick them on their bedroom door to wake up to in the morning. This morning I wrote “loved by God” or “treasured by God” on each of theirs as a reminder that even the most godly of virtues does not give them their identity, but rather the fact that God loves them because they are His. Then, beginning the 7th, I put out our Valentine’s Day mailboxes byt the breakfast table and stick Bible verses or little treats inside each day until the 14th, encouraging them to fill each other’s with handmade cards and little surprises, as well. They really love this.

On the morning of Valentine’s Day, we start the day with our breakfast table decorated with red and white and pink, a runner spread out and a vase of flowers (to squeeze in some springtime beauty before Lent begins and florals are replaced with sticks and branches from the yard), balloons and various other decorations from our Valentine’s Day bin that I’ve collected over the years. There are mugs with hearts and red plates awaiting heart shaped pancakes that never quite turn out as pink as we’d hoped, a mix of berries and a plate of bacon.

There’s also a small gift or two for each child—a book, a stuffy, a pretty little bag of Valentine’s candy…this year it’s new bathrobes! (I love using a holiday to gift them something sort of fun that we might have purchased ordinarily, like socks or pajamas or swimsuits or seasonal pictures books).

Valentine’s Day this year falls on Saturday, so we’ll let loose on the valentine card-making in the morning to fill up each other’s mailboxes and read some of our favorite Valentine’s books (I particularly love this one) and review our February family verse. I’ve found that cultivating a Christ-like love of neighbor, for children especially, but for all of us, really, begins with our closest neighbors: our family. When a child learns to earnestly love and serve their siblings in the mini-community of the family home, they are building a muscle of compassion and charity that will endure their whole life long.

In the afternoon, we’ll have our annual Valentine’s tea…complete with heart shaped tea sandwiches, my kid’s favorite chocolate tea, and an assortment of other treats. We’ll read the story of St. Valentine and chat about how God is calling each of us to the radical love of our neighbor, just like Valentine.

The Victorians had another sweet tradition hearkening back to an old country superstition that birds find their mates on St. Valentine’s Day and would make treats to hang on branches for the birds’ “wedding feast.” These can easily be made into heart shapes with the help of cookie cutters and strung up with red ribbon on a tree outside a window. This is a fun way to connect with Creation in a season when it is otherwise difficult to do so (MELT, SNOW!!!)

In the evening, our big kids’ school is hosting a family dance. They are excited to go and see friends and have even more treats and I love it when church or our community steps in with a meaningful activity that I don’t have to plan. Sometimes, many times, and especially in the little, little years, a tradition carried out and carried on by our communities is more enduring than the ones we create for our families within our own homes. Being part of a faithful community in which collective tradition is important and honored can take a lot of the weight off the shoulders of a mother.

It can be a challenge to muster the energy for intentional celebrations in the dead of winter as our liturgical year barrels toward a decided shift in tone with Lent, but I’ve always found that going all out on Valentine’s Day helps to drive home the idea that God’s love is overwhelmingly abundant, completely over-the-top and undeserved and that loving one another in a way that mirrors His love for us is a noble and holy pursuit.

It is the day before our third child’s third birthday (!!!), the driveway at the home we are renting while our home undergoes a major renovation is a total sheet of ice (and also built into the side of a mountain), and inspiration is lacking (except when it comes to my favorite wintertime show, of course).

Enter: the return of our weekly round-ups

Monday, February 2 is Candlemas, a well-timed day in our liturgical year marking Jesus’ presentation at the temple and the purification of Mary and the moment in scripture when we hear Simeon recite the Nunc Dimittis:

I love this short canticle so much, the emotion and joy of God’s promise to an old man fulfilled is palpable.

Maybe its because of the overwhelming joy I feel holding a newborn or meeting a friend’s new baby for the first time or seeing an infant baptized and considering how that joy might be infinitely multiplied if that baby were the actual savior of the world.

Historically (and pre-modern electricity), Candlemas offered the opportunity to take stock of the family’s candle supply at a critical point in the winter, replenish as needed and bring the household’s candles to church to be blessed for the year ahead.

I very intentionally selected a candle as the symbol for Liturgy of Ours. First and foremost because it represents the Light of the World and the light we’re all called to be as His image bearers. But also because of all the smaller ways a candle marks the life and legacy of a family and of a Christian. As I wrote in my very first post here on Substack:

A single lit candle—representing celebration, holy observance, and the power of light in the darkness—is our symbol for remaining steadfast in the journey to pattern our days and lives after the One who gave them to us to begin with. It is for the birthday, the baptism, the Fourth of July fireworks and the coming of the baby Jesus. It’s presence reminding us of what we’re aiming for: Light and the beautiful legacy it has the power to illuminate.

And though we no longer posses a practical need for candlelight in our modern age, its lack of necessity has failed to extinguish the soft glow that warms cherub faces gathered around a Tuesday night dinner table the same as it ushers in countless milestones and memories as the life of a family unfolds.

I love curating these weekly round-ups for you and have decided to try moving them to Fridays to allow for more weekend time given to longer form pieces and slowly building out what we’re doing here at Liturgy of Ours to bring you more inspiration, more conversation, and more tools to cultivate a legacy-minded family and home.

Because all of my people are quite small and my time is increasingly limited, my own personal written reflection portion will also be a bit shorter and links will be divided into the following sections to keep it clean and easy for you to navigate: Well Read (internet articles and Substack essays, mostly), In Season (inspiration for liturgical living and family traditions), Mother, Family, and Home (each category with thoughtfully curated books, heirloom-quality products, ideas, recipes, etc. to build your family culture).

How to Make a Healing Home by at offered encouragement for homemaking and creating special moments in less than ideal circumstances. Anxiously awaiting her new book, too!

Mid-home renovation, I loved combing through this list of Country Living’s The Country Design 100 — so many tastemakers and designers who genuinely consider the way a family moves and lives in a space.

For the first generation Christian who feels like they’re building from scratch, Lane Scott’s recent essay, How to Live Your Life Differently, is both practical and hopeful.

’s recent list of ways her mother influenced her (Motherhood I Learned By Example) had me just about in tears. This is it, moms! This is the way to your children’s hearts.

As I consider how to open the doors of our home more this year, both on a small, casual, and larger more festive scale, I have enjoyed following the mother-daughter dinner party-throwing duo over at and reading 12 Tables, 12 Lessons: What Hosting With My Mom Taught Me This Year.

gives us the history and takes us around the world in Candlemas traditions (+ a yummy crepe recipe!)

I was thrilled to learn about Plough Monday from : “Plough Monday is part of the process of blessing the restoration of our vocations - not a deflated slump back to the ‘same old, same old,’ but a celebration & blessing of the return to our daily grind.” How lovely!

For your Candlemas: Beeswax candles made locally by friends of friends in the Blue Ridge.

I also love these candles inspired by the saints and church seasons.

It is still Epiphany for several more weeks, and therefore not too late to bless your house and chalk your doors!

I’ve tried to intentionally turn down the podcast noise this season, but will be a forever fan of and ’s podcast Homemaker Chic which, aside from Jesus and my husband, legitimately kept me going through this past week.

The Daily Office app and this little devotional are my morning staples in a busy and demanding season of motherhood and life.

Bought a pack of wool Nordic Socks for my kids to pull on after coming in from playing in the snow or home from school. They love them.

In the same cozy vein, the equal-sized popcorn bowl struggle for Friday movie night was real so I bought four of these splatter enamelware bowls (I got the medium size) and I thank myself every Friday at approximately 6:30 pm for doing so.

I do not wish to get into the childhood screentime debate at this below-freezing-with-a-baby-and-a-toddler-in-a-home-thats-not-my-own juncture…so if you, like me, are in need of the occasional respite in the form of a (gasp!) television show, yet desire your children’s further education in virtue and deepening character formation, look no further than American Hero Classics.

Ordered a few of these kids’ catechism books for our family devotional time and plan to work through them during Lent!

Alright, before you get all “is she really posting about canned beans?” hear me out: Heyday’s beans and soups are…pretty dang good. High in fiber and protein. Flavorful enough to just add as an easy side at dinner or as a quick lunch on a hunk of sourdough (may I recommend the Tomato Alla Vodka?)

Burpee just released Thomas Jefferson’s Revolutionary Garden 250th Seed Collection, printing this on the packet from Jefferson: "Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous, and they are tied to their country and wedded to it's liberty and interests by the most lasting bands."

I’ve been wanting to make “Sunday dinner” more of a thing and just discovered The Sunday Dinner Cookbook with menu plans for all 52 Sundays, including festive holiday menus year-round.

Spoiler alert: There are a few minor spoilers in this piece—though I tried to keep it as friendly to the new viewer as possible!

Something happens deep in my soul every January when the Christmas decor is packed away, the children back in school, the warm glow of December turned icy and drab as the cold winter months plod on, and on…and on.

While the run-of-the mill, collective January through March experience may be prone to despair, leaving one clinging to various hacks to just make it through the winter months, even embracing a whole new mindset in the notion of “wintering” as a practice, my experience for the past half a decade or so has been something akin to that feeling when you find yourself deflated and desperate, thinking you are out of milk completely only to remember you have an extra half gallon in the garage fridge.

That half gallon, for me, comes in the form of a familiar, optimistic melody and watercolored cartoon collage depicting England’s Yorkshire Dales on PBS Masterpiece as I’m transported to another place and time and my spirit is imbued with a bit of hope and good cheer uncharacteristic of the longest-seeming month of the year.

Now, I’m not a big TV person or movie buff. Aside from The Crown and the occasional domestically aspirational special featuring Mary Berry or Monty Don (I’m sensing a theme…), I do not consider myself any sort of binge-watcher or pop culture connoisseur by a stretch.

Yet, I’ve been somewhat of an evangelist (a televangelist, if you will…ha!) for All Creatures Great and Small since it first aired 6 years ago, singing its praises to friends, family…anyone in any context, really!

Come January, the desire to farm sheep and purchase a sturdy pair of overalls to pair with a scratchy wool sweater and headscarf à la Helen Herriot threatens to overtake my entire personality.

I love the countryside and farm animals—have ever since I was a little girl. I find the varied personalities of each character to be endearing and funny and inspiring. And the show is about as wholesome as any show on TV in 2026 could ever hope to be.

But I don’t think that’s why I (or why, well, everyone) love it so much. I think it’s something more. Something deeper that touches on the shape of the life we all long to live.

Upon its first introduction, the New York Times and others lauded the series, based on James Herriot’s semi-autobiographical accounts of his life as a country vet in the Yorkshire Dales in the 1930’s and 1940’s, as the perfect pandemic escapism. And it seemed to be. Grand sweeping cinematography of a breathtakingly rugged place untouched by modern life even then, seemingly frozen in a time just before postmodernism descended on the West. Characters whose lives were insulated from the complexities of life erupting elsewhere in the world and certainly from those that plagued the era of American life that the show was introduced into.

But I don’t think James Herriot’s Darrowby is an escape at all. Rather, James and Helen and Siegfried and Mrs. Hall and Tristan and all the rest offer us a glimpse into life as it should be.

Life, perhaps, as it was meant to be.

The good life.

At the height of the pandemic I took part in an online cohort at the Yale Center for Faith and Culture called “Life Worth Living” in which we explored various religious, cultural and historical interpretations of “the good life” through various texts and rich discussion. Together we asked “what is the shape of a flourishing life?”

And now I finally have the answer: it’s the shape of the one they’re living on All Creatures Great and Small.

(Half) kidding!

Sure, at first nod All Creatures, as we have come to call the show at home, may seem pollyanna with all the heroic farm animal birth rescues, sweetly innocent romances unfolding against unbelievably gorgeous pastoral scenes, home-cooked meals by Mrs. Hall, and pints at the Drovers, yet the series never shies from the very hard parts of life: losing animals and livelihoods, broken engagements, war, disease, family tensions and estrangements, loneliness, displaced children, widows and widowers, employment difficulties, etc.

It’s just that these difficulties are taken in stride, kept in their proper place as inevitable hardships of human life in a broken world without proving all-consuming to the characters in their day-to-day lives and preventing them from pursuing their God-given purpose.

Which, of course, they are not likely to spend precious time mulling over.

They are just doing the next thing. They are just living a good, simple, and (usually) virtuous life.

Heck, even the “bad” guys are more earnest, honest and morally upright than your average angry, chronically online American.

And this, I think, calls out to something inside of us that we know to be true even as it feels impossible to reconcile with modern life:

We have ceased to be quiet, embodied, relational, local, traditional, grounded, rooted.

Wendell Berry wrote, “No matter how much one may love the world as a whole, one can live fully in it only by living responsibly in some small part of it.”

The apostle Paul instructs us via his letter to the Thessalonians to “aspire to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to work with your own hands” ( 1 Thes. 4:11).

This, we can deduce, is a loving, responsible, godly way to live.

And arresting cinematography and pastoral plotlines aside, All Creatures Great and Small has much to teach us about this type of flourishing, simple life in a complicated, confusing time. Here are a handful of them…

Live somewhere you find to be beautiful

In his first book, All Creatures Great and Small, from which the show gets its name, James Herriot (né Alf Wight) writes, “At times it seemed unfair that I should be paid for my work; for driving out in the early morning with the fields glittering under the first pale sunshine and the wisps of mist still hanging on the high tops.” The show captures this sentiment time and time again in James’ delighted, almost ecstatic expression as he cruises around the Yorkshire Dales’ winding roads in a beat up 1933 Vauxhall. For James, the worst day on the job is instantly soothed by the balm of his pastoral commute.

Our surroundings are the backdrop to our lives and, as such, they matter. There have even been studies to this end, examining the effect of natural beauty on human potential. Anecdotally, we know this to be true. After all, whose mind and soul isn’t immediately eased upon gazing across the lovely countryside, witnessing a watercolored sunset, or watching lake water lap up upon the pilings of a dock as a loon swims peacefully by?

Of course, not everyone can or should live in the Yorkshire Dales, but a bit of effort given to beautifying our surroundings and getting out in creation, goes a long way for not just our moods, but the very people we are becoming on a soul level.

Be a local

In All Creatures, the community that envelops the lives of the characters is so intricately woven together that the removal of any single member would affect the lives of all the others. Similarly, disagreements and strife within the community must be faced, head on, for daily life to continue. Disappearing into a life of isolation simply isn’t an option.

I really fought this idea for a long time, probably because we didn’t find a solid community that we lived physically close to until a few years ago, but I’ve found that geographic proximity is absolutely essential to authentic community. Seeing the same people weekly or daily—friends, fellow parishioners, co-workers, shopkeepers, people that live in work in the same community, etc. contributes to a deep sense of wellbeing that comes from being known or, to borrow a fairly cringe evangelical term “doing life together.”

There is a solid shoring up of one’s existential foundation that comes from being counted on, from mattering, from knowing that people if you were to just disappear tomorrow, people would notice and their lives would be changed even if in some small way. Darrowby is like this at its very core.

Do embodied work

In m ost episodes, we find our beloved characters with their arm halfway up a cow, wheels stuck in the mud, wellies, three-piece suit and waxed jacket on, arms filled with flakes of hay or dogs or cats or chickens, apron tied, kettle on, tapping a spoon against an egg in a cup, playing cards, glass of sherry in hand. They are living life will all five senses and then some. And it is good.

Even if your day-to-day tasks lend themselves more to the cerebral, doing physical work is important to our souls as we fight an increasingly contested reality that we are wholly embodied creatures who exist in the material world with bodies that are meant for loving and clapping and cleaning up and clinking glasses and climbing mountains and swimming in the ocean and ladling soup into bowls and digging in the dirt and holding wriggling children in one hand and a well-worn read aloud in the other.

Choose the good, do the good

The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines virtue as “the habitual and firm disposition to do the good,” and while I’m a proud Anglican, this definition is as straightforward as it gets.

The pursuit and embodiment of virtue is a thread that carries through each season of All Creatures, yet it is so inherent to how things are done in Darrowby that it feels almost too obvious to call out. James, in particular, is notorious for doing the right thing, even if it costs him. This is never more apparent than when he turns his own father-in-law’s herd in for tuberculosis contamination when he single-handedly took on piloting a new TB testing program in the countryside, much to the protest of his farmer clients. And with the beginning of World War II at the end of Season 2, the viewer senses a palpable moral tension as James wrestles internally with the realities of his reserved occupation as a vet and the desire to fight for his country—in his eyes, the right and only option for any decent man.

Mrs. Hall, Skeldale House’s no-nonsense housekeeper with a servant’s heart, is a beacon of virtuous living as she goes about doing her work with excellence, serving those in her house without complaint, offering words of wisdom and comfort. (I love lovely piece on Mrs. Hall here).

Even our characters who are less given to the dogged purity of heart we find in James and Mrs. Hall possess virtues that are hard to come by in our present era: persistence, resilience, prudence, kindness, selflessness, magnanimity, courage, self-sacrifice, hospitality, gratitude, tenacity, integrity, loyalty, diligence.

Family can be both given and found

In Season 1, Episode 1 we find James departing his home and doting, moderately overprotective parents in Glasgow, Scotland for an interview in the Yorkshire Dales with Siegfried Farnon, a notoriously bullheaded, yet well-respected country vet. Little does he know as he is greeted for the first time at Skeldale House by a housekeeper named Mrs. Hall, sopping wet from having got off at the wrong bus stop and traversing miles in the rain to arrive on time, that this would become his new home, his hot-headed boss and temperate housekeeper, along with a few other locals, his new family.

Yet, James continues to miss home, his parents, and the technological advances of city life in Scotland as the series unfolds. His love interest, Helen, is unwavering in her dedication to her father, little sister and their family farm at Heston Grange in the wake of her mother’s passing and the two will be forced to reckon with the complexities of families of origin, chosen families and the nuclear family on multiple occasions.

In Season 2’s heart-warming Christmas special, “The Perfect Christmas,” we find Helen and James navigating multiple Christmas meal commitments for the first time as couple only to find our characters uniting at the grand estate of the wealthy, elderly widow Mrs. Pumphrey and her spoiled pooch Tricki, Christmas trees and mince pies and roast turkey in hand as they show us that it is possible to reconcile, imperfectly, the tensions between all these types of families: given, chosen and created.

Life is a sacred gift

At the start of Season 2, Helen’s plucky younger sister, Jenny’s new dog, Scruff, has managed to shock a herd of sheep at a neighboring farm straight to the ground. One dies, the farmer is enraged, and the life of the dog is threatened, even by Jenny’s own father, a farmer himself who empathizes with his neighbor’s loss of life and livelihood. James works tirelessly with Jenny and the dog to train Scruff until he is no longer a threat to livestock, whilst lobbying the farmer and Helen and Jenny’s father to give the dog another chance. He succeeds and the dog’s life is spared, along with any future sheep it might have scared the literal life out of.

In another episode, the typically trouble-making and self-obsessed brother of Siegfried, Tristan, embarks on a mission to unite a troublesome stray dog with a difficult Irish Traveller woman (Mrs. Donovan) who recently lost her beloved pet. Despite the shortcomings of both Mrs. Donovan and the stray, and Tristan’s own comically selfish facade, he seeks to do the right thing to enhance the quality of life of all parties involved.

In Darrowby, there is an inherent understanding that—like the hymn after which the original Herriot books and subsequent TV series were named—the Lord God made them all.

And (spoiler alert) though the lives of the main characters are in the first several seasons nearly void of young children (I am excited to see how this will change!), the Skeldale House crew does take in a young Jewish girl WWII evacuee from London, and children are generally regarded with inclusion, kindness and adoration…as are the elderly.

In other words, life is seen as a gift in all its forms—something sacred that is to be protected, sheltered, nourished and celebrated.

Tradition matters

…but change is not (always) the enemy.

We see the tension between the two—tradition and innovation— play out in a seasons long battle between James and Siegfried regarding the procurement of an x ray machine for the practice…Siegfried representing the old guard who is content to do his job the way it’s always been done, and James the new, insistent that they change with the times.

James ends up being right on the x-ray machine, yet, sometimes the way things have always been done proves the better way.

Tradition in Darrowby—from Christmas parties to farming practices—is not discarded, only improved upon when necessary.

And even the crustiest of characters must learn to hold tradition in one hand and change in the other as they come to the realization (and the viewer alongside them) that some traditions are for a lifetime, and some me just a season.

Say less and get on with it

If I had a dollar for every time James or Mrs. Hall bit their tongue with a client or Siegfried…I’d have many a dollar! These two characters, in particular, teach us that not everything must be said or commented on or opined over (says the writer who has an opinion on almost everything). Saying nothing has proven a wise strategy on numerous occasions for our All Creatures characters, while conversely, saying too much has often caused relational strife. Then, there are the few, yet memorable, moments in the show in which the truth, spoken in love, changes everything for the better.

We need only to look to Mrs. Hall to discover a diligent, determined, no-nonsense approach to life characteristic of the Greatest Generation and exceedingly rare in today’s youth. Her one-liners delivered throughout the series contain timeless truths for living a life freed from the control of our emotions:

“Don’t dwell on what’s done when there’s things need doing.”

“Don’t let what’s on his mind play on yours.”

“There’s nothing worrying will do for it.”

And this from a woman whose own life has been plagued by such tragedies or “traumas” as a failed marriage, wayward son, and broken engagement, yet, she persists with a can-do attitude, warm presence, and cheerful spirit.

Mrs. Hall shows us the fruit that comes from a life that embraces, yet is not ruled by emotion.

Live simply and seasonally

One of the primary universal complaints I’ve found amongst mothers in my same season of parenting young children is how the complexities of family life weigh on them like a chaotic, frenzied cloud. And we all know there is much to complicate life for the modern family, but in Darrowby, life is markedly simpler—an English breakfast is offered up daily, the days work is written in a scrap of paper, the phone is answered, laundry done, food picked up across the way in the town square, pints awaiting at the local pub.

And though we find through James’ vocational escapades that the work of a country vet is itself, fairly unpredictable, he and our other characters are grounded and steadied by the infrastructure of familiar routine.

What’s more, the rhythms of the year are as predictable as daily life. The town and its surrounding farm community enjoy a host of seasonal activities, gatherings and traditions from an annual cricket match to a children’s duck race to a livestock show. There are tasks to be completed at home and on the farm, winter, spring, summer and fall, a well-rehearsed symphony of earnest work, deserved rest and celebratory merriment conducted almost entirely by the cycle of life itself.

The beauty of this simplicity is in how it grants the characters freedom to enjoy rich relationships, give themselves fully to their callings, and embrace rest and leisure in the in between.

They work hard, enjoy rhythms of rest and love one another well.

Without entering into an exploration of the myriad reasons our present lives lack this level of simplicity, it’s worth considering in light of Paul’s directive to the Thessalonians to “live a quiet life” how we might ourselves simplify an element of our own chaos and frenzy in order to get a little closer to life as it was designed by our Creator to be lived.

Think generationally

In The Lord God Made Them All, the fourth book in Herriot’s series, he records this exchange with a local:

“Maybe ye don’t know it, Mr. Herriot, but this is the best time of your life.” “Do you think so?” “Aye, there’s no doubt about it. When your children are young and growin’ up around ye—that’s when it’s best. It’s the same for everybody, only a lot o’ folk don’t know it and a lot find out when it’s too late. It doesn’t last long, you know.”

This sentiment is made tangible in later seasons of All Creatures, and we really see James step into his role as father in the current season six, but the theme of generational faithfulness is imbued throughout the series from the start.

In Darrowby, farming is a family business, with some of the shows farmers having inhabited the land they work for generations.

In one episode, James is treating the cattle herd of the young, recently widowed Mrs. Dalby for deadly husk and counsels her to perhaps cut her losses and sell the farm without her husband to help her walk through catastrophic and devastating trials like the one she is facing.

James’ misunderstanding of legacy farming even leads to a tense moment with Helen on their first official date as she tries to explain:

Your life isn't the ground under your feet. You haven't poured blood, sweat, and tears into the soil you plow. You haven't raised animals from birth knowing they could be taken from your any moment, and with them, your livelihood…Billy Dalby took on that farm from his father, and his father before him. It's young Billy's birthright. So long as there's something left to inherit.

But it is ultimately Mrs. Dalby’s response that changes James’ heart and serves as a sort of initiation for James into the Dales farmer mindset:

“When I look around I don't just see the things I've lost or might lose, I see everything I have. I see my boys. How I have so much worth fighting for still. And I owe it to them, to my family, not to give up. Even if it is the slimmest of chances, I'll take it. I might not have been able to save my husband, Mr. Herriot, but I can save our farm. Our home. So we're staying put. Like my Billy always used to say, only them as has them can lose them.”

While we may not all have farms to pass through the generations, the idea of a family business, trade, or other sort of family culture-shaping endeavor that can be carried on feels increasingly appealing in a culture that would splinter the nuclear family into a million, disintegrated pieces.

We talk a lot about the Legacy-Minded Mother™ here, and Darrowby is a legacy-minded place.

Do the thing you were created to do

In Darrowby, everyone has a job, even the animals—especially the animals. They are adored and treasured by their owners in large part because they are serving their purpose well, not considering that there is anything else they should be doing. The people are the same: farmers farm, vets treat animals, housekeepers cook great food and keep house, etc., and while it sometimes creates tensions when lines are crossed, this mindset fosters a sort of holy order in the community, with each living into their God-given purpose fulfilling their purpose without complaint. So much dignity is found in the pursuit and practice of what it is we were created to do—whether mothering or writing teaching or preaching or building homes or growing food or crunching numbers.

There is a wholesome simplicity to the way life goes on when each creature—whether human or animal—is doing exactly what God intended them to do, nothing more and nothing less. .

There’s no place like home to hold a life

The lions’s share of All Creatures episodes wrap with the characters either at or returning home at Skeldale House. Home is their safe place, their neutral, the starting point from which all adventures (and misadventures) take place and the haven to which they return from all manner of trials—whether war or a difficult lambing or a broken heart knowing there will be a home cooked meal, a board game, a fire in the hearth and a glass of sherry waiting.

Home is where they are reminded, to quote Julian of Norwich, “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”

The theme of home is ever present throughout, and while the home that James, Mrs. Hall, Siegfried, Tristan and (eventually—spoiler!) Helen make at Skeldale House is unconventional in that it is shared by this motley crew and also their place of work (an entire essay unto itself about the value and challenges or true work/life integration), it is everything that home should be: warm, cozy, welcoming, safe, orderly, never without good food and drink, hospitable and familiar.

When any given character picks up a persistent telephone with the greeting “Darrowby 2297!” the viewer is privileged to know the fullness of life that is held within the halls and walls on the other end of the line and to be the happy recipients of the many lessons our fictional friends in the Dales have to teach us about living our very real lives well.

As I sit down with pen and paper to plan out the year ahead, I always slot in our beloved family traditions that center around both the church calendar and the seasons and milestones of ordinary family life. Despite my desire to maintain some level consistency year-over-year for stability’s sake, things necessarily shift and change as we move through different seasons of life. This past year, my capacity for celebration and planning intentional moments was slashed by about 80%, yet, because so many of our traditions are becoming second nature—almost as if on auto-pilot—as we enter our 10th year with children, we still managed to hold fast to so many of the things we always do. It wasn’t perfect, but it was meaningful, and in the process our family was knit closer to each other and to our wider Christian family.

One exercise I’ve found helpful as a new year crests on the horizon is to mentally traverse through the past twelve months (with the help of my camera roll to jog my often still-clouded postpartum mind) and pull out our highlights and most meaningful moments to inform my planning for the year ahead and avoid that pit in the stomach feeling (the one I’ve felt more times than I’d like to admit this past year) that I’m missing the point and doing all the wrong things altogether. And this year, I thought I’d bring you along…

Join me in a brief walk through our favorite moments in family traditions and liturgical living from 2025, and please share yours in the comments below!

(p.s. I’m trying out subscriptions for the first time with this post, with a plan to keep the bulk of my posts open to all subscribers, but with a special little bit at the end from The Legacy-Minded Mother™ just for paid subscribers—and from here on out, all LMM content (monthly guides, interviews with other LMMs and extra tips or insights at the end of posts) will be exclusive to our paid subscriber community. This will help to fund our forthcoming podcast and product offerings that I can’t wait to create for all of us to use!)

January

Favorite Family Tradition: The First Day Hike — I think one of the reasons I love this tradition so much, is that we have been doing it consistently almost the entirely of our family’s life, even if accidentally. Now, we start each new calendar year together out in creation without question. Some years, because of the weather, this has been pushed to the 2nd or the 3rd, but the heart behind it remains the same.

Runner-up: The Epiphany House Blessing — During the season of Epiphany, the rector of our church makes his way to the homes of parishioners to offer an Epiphany House Blessing, pray over our family for the coming year and chalk the doors of our homes. It’s incredibly meaningful and I love that our children are always gathered around to bear witness to the blessing (even as they frequently interrupt said prayers).

February

Favorite Family Tradition: The Valentine’s Day Tea — I love this tradition we have started with our kids. While they are at school on Valentine’s Day (or playing at home if it falls on a weekend), I set the dining room table for a “fancy’ Valentine’s Day tea to welcome them when they get home.

Runner-up: The Shrove Tuesday Pancake Supper— Our church held a wonderful pancake supper this year on Shrove Tuesday (Fat Tuesday), complete with Mardi Gras decorations, and opened it up to the community. It was such a fun way to start the Lenten season and, at about ten million weeks pregnant (32 to be exact), I was more than glad to have a community that disciples and makes meaning for our kids alongside what we do at home.

March

Favorite Family Tradition: The Resurrection Garden — I think I had the flu for almost all of this month, so the mom effort was lacking in the traditions department. However, this is the perfect example of how exercising the muscle of your family traditions year-over-year makes it easier and easier to execute over time. I keep all the elements needed to construct our resurrection garden out in my potting area, save wheatgrass seeds from the year before and viola, it becomes as simple as asking kids to go find some dirt and rocks and sticks to finish the rest.

Runner-up: Making Lenten soft pretzels — A favorite recipe that just so happens to help teach the tenants of Lent as you make them. Little Way Chapel has a great recipe, but you can find them all over!

April

Favorite Family Tradition: Easter church with our church family & our Easter Lamb Cake with our newest blessing in tow! — Just two weeks postpartum, we made every effort to make it to church on Easter and I’m so glad we did. Our church’s tradition of flowering a cross on the way in is beautiful. At home, we made our lamb cake and, let me tell you, this recipe made its way into my son’s preschool Mother’s Day cookbook as our "family recipe” that my mom “always makes” and now the other moms thing I am just the fanciest lamb cake-maker you ever did see!

Runner-up: New baby blessing — Upon bringing our fourth baby home from the hospital, our pastor came to our home to pray a blessing over her and our whole family as we welcomed her into our life and the life of the church. I wrote more about it here.

May

Family Family Tradition: Our Family Birthday — A couple of years back, we started a tradition of throwing a family birthday party on our wedding anniversary when kids were uber-small, sitters were hard to come by and the day never felt like it fell on an optimal day to get away together. We order from our favorite The Clam Shack through Goldbelly, set a fancy table, make a family birthday cake, read a collect for celebrating an anniversary, watch our wedding video and reflect on God’s faithfulness in building our family. Then, the pressure is off and we can find a time that suits to sneak away for a dinner or celebration together.

Runner up: Berry picking with friends — We go strawberry picking every year with friends and I can just feel the nostalgia of filling their baskets with bright red juicy fruit alongside their buddies taking root in my kids hearts each time that we do.

June

Favorite Family Tradition: Going all-out for our son’s 6th birthday — We are big birthday people anyway, but this year my son, who has faced some degree of social anxiety up until this point (hello, Covid babies), asked for the first time to have a birthday party with friends. Say less, my dear son! I blinked back tears and hired a vintage fire truck to come to his birthday party and regret nothing.

Runner-up: Father’s Day golf outing — My husband took our big kids to hit balls on Father’s Day and though I stayed back with the little girls, yet again, it filled my heart to see them bonding with their dad over something he loves.

July

Favorite Family Tradition: July 4th with friends — To be honest, I never felt like we quite figured out our July 4th traditions before this year. We met up at the pool with friends in the late afternoon and stayed (well, my bigs and husband while I put the little girls down) to watch a brilliant fireworks display in their pool chairs, ice cream pops in hand.

Runner-up: Baptism rainbow popsicles & storytime — To help mark the day of our children’s baptism in a meaningful way, we started a simple tradition this year of having a rainbow treat (popsicles) and reading Walter Wangerin’s Water Come Down.

August

Favorite Family Tradition: Maine — Okay, okay, a state isn’t a “tradition” per se, but our annual family trip to Kennebunkport, Maine has become a staple in the life of our family with a whole host of traditions all its own: visiting the magical seaside fairy garden, playing on the rocks and playground at Mother’s Beach, eating lobster rolls at the Clam Shack, lobster boat rides for the boys and hand-squeezed lemonade for the girls, date night at the White Barn Inn, visiting the toy store, overlooking Walker’s Point, visiting St. Anne’s by the sea, having a lobster boil on the last night, seeing the “toilet paper pigeons” at Snug Harbor Farm, hiking the Marginal Way Trail and at the Rachel Carson sanctuary, picking blueberries and making a pie, all our favorite Maine-themed books, taking the same picture in the same spot, evening pajama walks by the water, eating platters of seafood and watching the lobster boats come in in Cape Porpoise…Maine in August is a tradition in an of itself for our family.

September

Favorite Family Tradition: The Birthday Box — In my crusade to purchase fewer, better, heirloom-quality things to support our family traditions, this year we began to curate a family birthday box, filling it with heirloom-quality, reusable things to help celebrate the birthday girl or boy: a Happy Birthday banner, our family birthday plate, numbered silver candle holders, fabric crowns with each child’s name embroidered, and a special tablecloth for the table where gifts are displayed on the morning of their birthday.

October

Favorite Family Tradition: Trick-or-treating & a Halloween party with friends —A surprise for me here as Halloween has never been my favorite holiday, but in recent years I’ve grown in my understanding and love for the Autumn Triduum of All Hallow’s Eve, All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day and this has brought joy and the light of Christ back into the celebrations for our family. We trick-or-treating in dear friends’ beautiful neighborhood and attending our neighbor’s annual party, the one time each year we get to see and connect with all of our country neighbors.

Runner-up: Family Camping — We normally do this in September for my daughter’s birthday, but I love our little tradition of making a fire, cooking hot dogs and baked beans and baked dutch oven apples and s’mores and then sleeping in the tent together (okay, okay, this year it was just my husband and the big kids…)

November

Favorite Family Tradition: Making a full Thanksgiving dinner together, soup to nuts! — It ended up this year that we spent Thanksgiving just with our little family, and while I’d love to share the Thanksgiving meal prep with family or friends next year, I’m proud of that way we learned to make so many traditional foods together.

Runner-up: Assembling our Advent wreath from foraged greens — Advent came early this year and we missed our Advent wreath workshop at church, so we improvised by placing our brass Advent candle holder on an old silver tray of my grandmothers that we covered with greens we foraged together from our property—juniper and holly and boxwood and pine—and it turned out beautifully and was super easy to refresh when the greens got crispy mid-December.

December

Favorite Family Tradition: All of it — I can’t choose here, this Christmas season felt full and fun and exactly what we needed. Picking our Christmas tree at a friend’s farm & decorating together in Christmas jammies and then gifting out family ornaments: from vacation, the kids’ character awards and their yearly ornaments. Celebrating the feasts of St. Nicholas Day with gifts in shoes and give back sacks, St. Lucia cinnamon buns, our third annual Baby Shower for Mary, candlelit Christmas Eve, Christmas morning brunch and matching PJs and gifts under the tree, our Holy Innocents Family Gift (this was originally something we gifted on Christmas Eve—a box filled with things to bring us together as a family like a puzzle (of us!) a game, our vacation ornament and a book to read together, but this year we didn’t get to it until the 28th which ended up feeling perfect), I love the traditions we’ve built and borrowed and can’t wait to go deeper with them in 2026.

The Legacy-Minded Mother’s Notes for Next Year…

Though the beauty in family traditions and liturgical living is found partially in their familiarity and repetition, there is still much planning, preparation and rearranging to be done for a young family in setting up the things “we always” do…

This year, I purchased a Liturgy of Ours journal and started taking notes over the course of our year and the everyday rhythms, celebrations and traditions that make up our family life. After each birthday, liturgical holiday or seasonal celebration I take notes for next year about what worked, what didn’t, what we’d like to repeat, what we might need to let go of and what to adopt in our home and family for next year…

Read more

Before we moved to our current town in central Virginia, we spent a couple of years renting a home and looking for land to build in Loudoun County, a rural—though increasingly less so—former sanctuary for Washington DC’s elite, the likes of whom included Jackie Kennedy.

One property we toured boasted a tiny antique-y cottage with a quaint log cabin atop a hillside overlooking idyllic rolling acres of green pasture. Upon running the numbers and thinking through possibilities (and discovering asbestos), we decided it wasn’t the right fit for us, but in my research into the property I discovered a gem.

The adjacent farm (I later learned was called Evergreen Farm)—the one whose immaculate landscape the property overlooked, once belonged to Catherine Marshall, the widow of the famed former U.S. Senate chaplain and New York Avenue Presbyterian Church preacher, Peter Marshall.

Immediately fascinated by her life and his, I dove into each of their impressive writings—her books and his sermons—and was inspired by their life story, with its vigor and zeal for the Lord, even as Catherine lost Peter so young—at just 46—to a heart attack. And then, I stumbled upon a short sermon I’ll cling to year-over-year as Christmas Day whizzes by and we, as Christians, are left with a choice that feels increasingly countercultural to make: will we keep the feast?

Will we celebrate Christmas in it’s entirety, just as it has always been done?

In this famous sermon, Let’s Keep Christmas, Marshall preached:

Isn't it wonderful to think that nothing can really harm the joy of Christmas. Although your tree decorations will include many new, it's the old that mean the most, the ones you save carefully from year to year. And you'll bring out the tiny manger and lovingly arrange the little figures of the Holy Family. There will be the fragrance of cookies baking. And you'll listen to the wonderful Christmas music on the radio. Some of the songs will be modern, but it will be the old carols, the lovely old Christmas hymns that will mean the most. Forests of greens will march right into our living rooms. There will be bells on our doors and holly wreaths in our windows. And then you will remember what Christmas means. The promise that the angels sang is the most wonderful music the world has ever heard. "Peace on earth and good will toward men." In a world that seems to be not only changing but even dissolving, there are some tens of millions of us who want Christmas to be the same. . . with the same old greeting "Merry Christmas" and no other. We long for the abiding love among men of good will which the season brings. Believing in this ancient miracle of Christmas with its softening, sweetening influence tugs at our heart strings once again. So we will not "spend" Christmas ... nor "observe" Christmas. We will "keep" Christmas- keep it as it is in all the loveliness of its ancient traditions. May we keep it in our hearts, that we may be kept in its hope.

Marshall spoke of keeping Christmas as it has always been, and for Christians, this has always been a season of feasting! Not a single day flash in the pan (thank goodness—we did so much preparation and it would be a real shame for it to all be over in just one wrapping paper-covered morning!) Celebrating the season fully does something in our hearts that cannot be achieved in a mere 24 hours.

Still, this is easier said than done when Christmas boxes beckon to be packed up, the whole slate wiped clean in preparation for a new calendar year.

So, to gin up some inspiration for keeping Christmas both in my heart and in yours, I asked a handful of my favorite and most thoughtful Substack writers to chime in on how they observe and celebrate the Twelve Days of Christmas in their own hearts and homes.

I think you’ll be deeply blessed and inspired, as I was, by what they had to say…

of :

In our home, Christmas doesn’t end on December 25, it begins. We try to embrace the fullness of Christmastide by stretching out the joy, wonder, feasting, and celebration across all twelve days. We don’t rush to take anything down; the tree stays lit, the wreaths remain on the doors, and the beauty of Christmas is allowed to linger in our home. I have candles throughout the house, and we light them whenever we wish, simply because this season is all about light and it’s beautiful. We finally sing all the Christmas carols we’ve been holding back during Advent, playing our favorite carol playlist on repeat through our living room speakers until it feels as though the songs have soaked into the walls. Each evening, we light all of the Advent candles, and at long last, the white Christ candle in the center, reminding us of the Light of the World among us.

The Nativity scene is a particularly beloved part of our celebration. On Christmas Eve, we place Baby Jesus in the manger, and throughout the twelve days, the Wise Men slowly make their journey toward Him, finally arriving on Epiphany. These days are slower and quieter, filled with carols and candlelight. We keep baking our favorite Christmas treats, sugar cookies, fudge, and baklava, my mom’s Christmas specialty, and eat as much as we want. These days invite us torest, to reflect, and to keep celebrating the miracle that God chose to dwell among us. For us,Christmastide is about letting the light linger, staying present to the joy and wonder that doesn’t end on Christmas morning, but only just begins.

of Hearthstone Fables:

In trying to graft the fullness of Christmas - its whole Twelve Days - into our own family life, we kept feeling the dissonance of ‘keeping Christmas’ when our surrounding culture had moved on. When I stopped seeing Christmas as a *destination*, though...instead, seeing it as a *journey*...the wholeness of this mysterious season began to bloom in more organic ways for us.

I started to wonder about Christmastide as an invitation to pilgrimage: a time both inward and expansive, dynamic in its connection with both God and neighbor. This helps me to prune away all the expectations I had put on Christmastide of being twelve solid days of Christmas activities/crafts/baking. Instead, I take a note from Medieval Twelvetide celebrations, which were sustained by community-wide movements like wassailing and mumming...journeys, from place to place, through the mystery of the season and through the terrain itself. And even if there are no longer community traditions of this sort, we distill them into our modern Twelvetide pilgrimages: driving trips to visit family...small day-hikes to new destinations or familiar ones...dropping off hot cocoa on a neighbor’s porch.

In our Christmastide pilgrimage traditions, we aim to seek out the local treasures wherever we are - listening for God’s whispers about the Nativity along the daily path toward whatever our destination may be that day, whether finally making the drive to an aunt’s house to drop off some festive gifts, seeking out a new hike, or returning to a meaningful place...whether it’s many days’ drive away or just down the road, we try to treat each of these Twelve Days as another leg in our Nativity pilgrimage. And, in treating this sacred time as a progression through the season rather than a static celebration, we find ourselves more sustained in the beauty of our landscape, our people, and this greatest of God’s gifts.

of :

Living Christmastide invites our household into a more intentional and profound liturgical life. Although it can be discouraging to witness the broader culture abandon Christmas celebrations on December 26, observing the full twelve days—from December 25 through the Feast of the Epiphany—fosters a sustained awareness of Christ’s presence. This practice cultivates wonder and joy within the home. The anticipation established by a simplified Advent yields significant spiritual fruit during Christmas. In our family, we embrace the richness of the Octave and attend Mass together on the feast days between Christmas and the Epiphany, such as the Feast of the Holy Innocents, which commemorates Herod’s massacre of boys two years old and under, and the Feast of St. Stephen, the first martyr. We continue to bake and celebrate with each meal through these days. During family night prayer, we intentionally conclude with singing Christmas hymns. Attending or hosting an Epiphany party extends the season further. Ultimately, centering the season around Christ rather than material goods establishes a strong foundation for a meaningful home culture.

of :

I have acquired the habit, in my older age, of rising early on Christmas Eve and simply wandering around the house sipping my coffee and absorbing the delicious ambiance of sight, sound, and smell. It is a scene brimming with traditions: some dating back to the time my children jokingly refer to as the “ancient mists” of my own childhood, and some more recent that have seamlessly merged with the past as the years marched on and we grew almost imperceptibly into our own unique version of the domestic Church.

There is the smell of allspice filling the whole house as the Canadian pork pies are assembled and cooked from the very recipe card my own mother wrote out for me in her sprawling hand, and her mother wrote out for her long ago. There is the smell of Kulich bread, a nod to my husband’s Germanic heritage, rising in its yeasty splendor on the back of the stove - bread we will eat on Christmas morning with generous mounds of butter. That taste of bread still evokes the sound of wrapping paper flying amidst the spontaneous oohs and ahhs at thoughtful presents given and received. The crystal champagne flutes I inherited, glowing with readiness on their silver tray for the bubbly to be poured after Midnight Mass. A sight that reminds me so vividly of my own mother on Christmases past greeting us at the front door in her long, embroidered skirt and silk blouse with a merry, “Joyeaux Noel!” Oh, and the sonorous memory of my father’s deep bass voice toasting to the glory of God and the newborn King. I became that mother eventually and my husband’s voice made the toast. Champagne will always carry that cachet for me. Of Christmas Eve as it shone through the candlelit crystal.

The tree is laden with memories. Baby’s first Christmas, the Kindergarten ornament heavy with glitter. The angels my sister, with impeccable taste, always gave to me each year. These ornaments tell a whole life story and that’s a fact. There is the very moment my two little boys met Santa for the first time captured by the artist hand of their perceptive uncle and framed on the mantlepiece. There is all the Christmas music we love blaring happily as we wrap presents at the dining room table. I smile at the hand painted, wooden crèche made exclusively for little hands to play with by my oldest sister that has lasted unto the second age of grandchildren. And the music: the Renaissance wonders, King’s College, Medieval beauties. Mannheim Steamroller. Books. My mom and dad’s clever handiwork everywhere in carved wood and embroidery. The Madonna my husband surprised me with one year - because he had heard me say that I loved her once in passing.

Without tradition, there would be no gratitude. Gratitude for children born in a house that had long been a home and new traditions now vining once again to a new, downsized apartment - filled with the same smells, sights, sounds. This is our domestic Church, built with such small things bringing with them such powerful effect.

Gazing and pondering on these settled traditions on the morning of Christmas Eve makes me realize that indeed, like old George Bailey, I really have had a wonderful life. Blessed be God forever!

of :

Each year, as I bake cookies alongside my children, volunteer in our church’s annual Christmas pageant, read the favorite storybooks, wrap gifts, and genuinely move at an alarming rate through December, I always find myself grateful for the arrival of Christmastide. In our family, Christmastide is a sacred family occasion free from the obligations and daily distractions of our regular rhythm and routines, where one is can usually be found nestled in a favorite spot, draped in blankets, a drink in hand, and trying to mentally calculate what day it is. As a homeschool mom, writer, wife, and friend who occasionally texts back, the Advent season can fly by in a festive whirl of Christmas lights, popsicle stick crafts, and general magic-making.

But for us, Christmastide is a chance to shut ourselves in, turn our cell phones off, and enjoy the last lingering gifts of the season: cookies left on our porch by a neighbor, family game night by the fire, and going on hot chocolate hikes through the North Carolina mountains. Are favorite annual tradition came from my beloved friend Sally Clarkson and it’s one that we save for the week between Christmas and New Year is our annual Family Day! Each year, we gather as a family and write down all the ways we have seen God move in our lives in the previous year. From the small things, like meeting a new family at church, to the big things like answering an earnestly prayed prayer. We have our kids join in and we also list all the things we are praying for in the upcoming year. Our oldest is six and we have a leather binder filled with six years of the story God is writing in our family’s life and all the ways He has been so good to us! As we close out the end of one year and enter into the next during Christmastide, it’s became our favorite family tradition!

of :

The Christmas Season in our house means first and foremost an absence of work; my husband normally works twelve to fourteen-hour days running an American manufacturing company, and during Christmastide he actually takes some time off to celebrate with us. The gift of my husband’s increased presence in the family’s daily activities alone makes Christmas feel different than any other time of year.

Over the years, our rural community of California Gold Country ranchers have developed a tradition of visiting each others’ houses during Christmas, bringing gifts we make ourselves off the fat of the land and the fruits of our labor all summer and fall. So far this year, I’ve received home-cured olives, wax peppers, sausage, alcohol, beef tallow, flower and vegetable seeds, honey, and all manner of candy and sweets, tucked and labeled into mason jars. I usually give my friends plants, bulbs, and flowers for their homes to brighten the coming dull and freezing winter months. We also pass out homemade tomato sauce from the summer garden, salsa, or applesauce from our orchard.

California weather is so mild that our busy summer and fall ranching season often extends well into December; but come Christmas we are finally forced indoors by rain or freezing temperatures, which mark the end of a nine-month growing season. We gave our Belted Galloway steer forty-five days of grain to finish him for butchering mid-December, and the meat shop will deliver all our glorious home-raised and grass-fed beef cut, wrapped, frozen, and labeled next week—all except for the giant prime rib roast, which he sets aside in the cooler so we can have it fresh and never-frozen on New Year’s Day.

This year we will drive 2.5 hours west to see the San Francisco Ballet perform The Nutcracker on the 27th, and one hour east into the Sierras for skiing and sledding in our 1970s time-capsuled, one-horse mountain ski lodge. A few community meetups for flag football and ultimate frisbee once the weather clears will round out a perfect Christmas season packed with feasting, visiting, caroling, and enjoying all the fruits of our family’s and community’s labors in 2025.

I am sitting on the Santa Express, juggling the baby as the toddler twists her body incessantly in my husband’s lap next to me.

The festively—if tackily—lit train jolts out of the station as my older children begin asking me, loudly, if Santa is real.

“Well, what do you think?”

“I think St. Nicholas was real…obviously! and Santa is part of the the legend of St. Nicholas that lives on.”

Nailed it.

“Let’s talk more at home.”

There are little ears listening at the next table over and, after all, this entire train experience is predicated on the existence of Santa.

The baby is wriggling this way and that, we are balancing hot cocoa and cookies and the crayons that the nice lady in the elf hat just handed out and my mind jumps to the gifts that must be wrapped, the Advent devotions we should squeeze in when we get home, already after bedtime. I make a mental note to space out our holiday cheer a bit more next year as the past 48 hours have been a whirlwind of fun, yet tiring activity.

More than 2,000 years prior, another mother holds a squirming baby, but she isn’t on a warm train, she’s in a stable, surrounded by animals, a bright star beaming down upon the whole scene. She has traveled far and taken great risks in her saying yes to Christmas.

No doubt it cost her something—a sense of security within her culture, likely. Sleep! For sure sleep. Any other plans she had for that day, those nine months, her whole life.

But what she gained was everything.

In our family we have a saying, particularly whilst traveling or celebrating or doing anything of the memory-making variety that goes above and beyond our everyday, and that is “The Cost of Doing Family.” These are sunk costs, whether in the form of actual capital, or time, or opportunities, that come from having four children and pursuing a meaningful life with them. It is what “the cost of doing business” is to a company, to our family, and we do our best to not fuss over these lost or squandered resources that we can never get back because living a full life as a family of six is better than those things we might fret about preserving.

This saying has given us a lot of freedom in going ahead and doing the thing for memory-making and family culture-building’s sake.

Then, there is that special time of year when theses expenditures of time and money and energy seem to increase and The Cost of Doing Family distills into The Cost of Doing Christmas.

You see, when a mother says yes to Christmas, like Mary she makes room in her heart for Jesus and in doing so she she says yes to all the preparations that must be made for his arrival. For Mary these were both practical and spiritual—and for us, as well.

And yes, they will cost you something.

Time. So. Much. Time.

Money, whether a lot or a little.

Emotional and physical energy.

A chunk or two of your nervous system.

But what are we doing, really in all of this decorating and shopping and wrapping and crafting and giving and merrymaking?

Are we just, at the end of it all, glancing heavenward asking, if this is it? If we are missing the point altogether as we’re left there in the kitchen covered in flour and late for church, again?

Is all of this labor in vain?

Surely not.

Because what a mother does at Christmas is to train within the hearts of her children a holy longing while cultivating a holy sense of belonging.

As anticipation builds over the course of Advent—as the house glows brighter still with each lighting of the Advent wreath, each new garland strung, each heirloom recipe baked and hymn sung—we are helping to model the Christian life in its entirety. We are laying the foundation in little hearts for the is to come.

In Treasuring God in Our Traditions, Noel Piper writes, “The things we do regularly that help us in our deepest being to know and love and want God, the things that help our lives to be infiltrated with God—those things are tradition. And then if there are children in our lives to pass these God-focused activities to the next generation—that’s what tradition is for a Christian.”

As such, if we are careful to direct the object of our efforts heavenward, all the things we do during Advent and at Christmastime can set our children up well to grasp spiritual realities of the Christian life:

We give gifts and gain understanding of the greatest gift.

We see Christmas lights and how they shine in the darkness and how the darkness has not overcome them.

We bake and feast and add things to our homes that glitter and glow (with bows!) and experience abundance in the here and now.

If we practice Advent, with its slow build and gradual lightning of a small wreath as the church has done for so many years, we will learn restraint.

We are the recipients of undeserved love when we unwrap a yearned for gift from a friend of parent or spouse even though perhaps this wasn’t our best year.

We answer the second greatest commandment as we serve one another in love, gather donations to clothe the naked and feed the hungry, write cards of good cheer, deliver a treat to a lonely neighbor or friend.

We steal a glimpse of the eternal as we worship and gather together in community.

We become conditioned to the idea of miracles as we recount the miraculous Virgin birth over and over again.

The natural world mimics our anticipation as the darkest day sets in and then it begins to get light again.

And who better in our earthly homes to usher in these realities than a mother, the same vessel through which God himself made his way to us all those silent nights ago.

And yes, the season of Christmas has been secularized and commercialized into oblivion.

And yes, we probably buy too much stuff.

And yes, you are a better mother if you do only Little Women inspired crafts…

(just checking to make sure you’re still awake…)

But there is a difference between a holiday hustle that is harried and one that is holy and that difference lies in the end game. What are we playing for? What type of nostalgia are we trying to create? And for whom?

Because, yes, we all want our children to grow up pining for the warm and cozy childhood Christmas they experienced in their bright and cheerful home with all its traditions and good food and cheery decor and communal merriment but, more than this, we are creating a yearning for eternity.

We’re setting the stage for a heavenly nostalgia.

A sense of nostalgia that isn’t for our sake, as much as I live as though it were sometimes, but rather for the sake of our children understanding, deeply, what it means to belong. To rejoice. And then to continue to long.

Dickens said it best when he wrote, “I will honour Christmas in my heart and try to keep it all the year.”

Keeping Christmas is how we live as Christians.

So as you stay up too late wrapping gifts tonight, rifling through laundry piles for Christmas Eve church tights in three different sizes (hi, hello) checking your Amazon account to see if that gift might arrive on time, mopping the floor and washing the table cloth for one more holiday gathering or packing everyone in the car to head to one more festive event remember the work you’re doing is pointing hearts heavenward—not just in your explicit teaching and devotionals, though those matter—but in the scaffolding you’re building in small hearts that will support the construction of greater spiritual realities.

You will not do this perfectly.

I repeat. It will not be perfect.

But it is okay, because the One whom it is all for is perfection personified.

A very good gift at the end of all your laboring—One that, had you not done one single thing, still would have come.

Yet, you did do the things. And your children will be blessed by all the ways you prepared their hearts to prepare Him room.

And so will you.