Gifts received, gifts given
As Christmas approaches, many of us are thinking about gifts. The beautifully wrapped packages under the Christmas tree, of course. Also other types of gifts—the kind that we can receive and give at any time of the year. The gifts that require more than a click on a website or a trip to the mall.…
Christmas pudding a long-time tradition
For many of us, sitting around the table with extended family is a very important part of our Christmas celebration. In my family of origin, the traditional menu included turkey and dressing, while dessert was always iced sugar cookies and fruit salad with cubes of red and green Jell-O. I’m sure each family has its…
Getting into the Christmas spirit across Canada
In keeping with the season, Canadian Mennonite has wrapped up four Christmas events—from Alberta, Ontario and British Columbia—into one package for your festive reading. CALGARY—Foothills Mennonite Church hosts a seniors lunch once a month, during which they gather in fellowship and share a delicious meal. On Nov. 28, the Menno Simons Christian School Junior-High…
Watch: How to make peppernuts
If you’re interested in making peppernuts this holiday season and the recipe on our website won’t cut it, you’re in luck: Kristin “Baker Bettie” Hoffman has just the thing for you. Earlier this month, the Chicago-based baking instructor uploaded a video to YouTube in which she demonstrates how to make the tiny round treats. You…
Waiting in the dark
waiting in the dark this season and place tilted away from the sun provides generous hours of darkness darkness may harbour breathtaking fear endless dread of unknowns aching hearts darkness may host healing rest lovemaking visitations in dreams babies grow strong in dark wombs turnips and beet roots stretch and fatten in dark earth darkness…
An Anabaptist does Advent
I don’t recall talking about Advent in the church in which I grew up, an Anabaptist church with a conservative evangelical bent. Certainly we didn’t mention Lent. And those other church days, with names like “Epiphany” and “Trinity Sunday” and “Feast of Christ the King”? Those weren’t even in my universe. We celebrated the five…
Goshen College’s annual online Advent devotions to start Nov. 25
GOSHEN, Ind. — Goshen College will offer annual online weekday devotions to help believers make time and space in their hearts and minds to reflect during the season of Advent. Beginning Nov. 25, the week before the first Sunday of Advent, and culminating on Christmas Day, Goshen College students, faculty and staff will provide weekday…
Experiencing Christmas by lamplight
Old-fashioned oil lamps graced each windowsill in the tiny sanctuary, their steady flames bathing the room in warm light as people filed into the pews. The people came to experience “Christmas by lamplight.” The Mennonite Heritage Museum and Interpretive Centre in Rosthern hosted the event in the church that stands next to the museum on…
‘Fear not’
In the past few weeks, a theme has emerged in my Advent singing and Scripture reading: fear. Fear is all around us. A recent book about a fearmongering president is on the bestseller list. Politicians and pundits stoke a public paranoia, using it to boost their own power. Credible scientific reports alert us to the…
Welcoming the stranger at Christmas
The Christ Child has arrived. We’ve waited through four weeks of Advent to light that fifth candle, the Christ candle, symbolizing the presence of Christ in our midst. And we feel ready to welcome this baby with open arms. Don’t we? It’s easy to forget, I think, that the Christ Child received rather contradictory messages…
