Day 6, Advent: the ornament memory

A little while after we were married and Christmas time had come, I dragged Travis to Hobby Lobby to ornament shop.

The plan was to buy an ornament each year to represent where we were in life.

Travis chose a goose, forever his favorite bird.

I chose a bright green oven mitt with utensils sticking out of the top.

“Love to Cook,” it read.

If being new to marriage wasn’t challenge enough, my cooking capabilities were the hardest skills to bring to life.

I’d curdled pasta sauce and burned cookies, but I could heat and salt pizza rolls like a pro.

Seven years later, I make my own yogurt and bake my own graham crackers, and while cooking often exhausts me, I take that ornament out of the box every December and laugh.

Advent is about waiting, growing in expectant hope.

How little I knew that night at Hobby Lobby, the way that ornament would foster a growth in me– an expectant growth into the woman I’d become.

The Advent season is for laughter.

May we bellow a little, cheer bursting from our rosy cheeks, when we remember where we’ve come from and where we may one day go.