.and though it's been said many times, many ways.

Once upon a time, there was a girl who had a very specific Christmas Fantasy.

Her dream was that everyone she loved

would all live together in one big cabin.

On a mountain somewhere.

(I mean, we're dreaming, right? So it would have a front porch and window seats, too.)

And throughout the month of December,

they would all just, you know,

sit together (probably while cuddling) by the crackling fire,

watching the snow fall and singing Christmas carols,

laughing all the way.

Alas, instead the people the girl loves are all spread out around the country/world.

So she cajoled them all into sending her pictures of them getting ready for Christmas.

Then the girl could PRETEND she was sitting with them drinking hot chocolate

or helping them trim the Christmas tree...

right?

(She may have told them she needed these pictures for a "collage"...

Well, she lied. They were for the blog.

Duh.)

Enjoy my little spread-out community.

Very grateful everyone participated and I get to pretend I am with all of you this season...

Oh, how blessed I am with the people I get to know + love!!

It's (some of) my second family and their tree!! I would like to publicly announce that Char was the FIRST PERSON to get her Christmas photo to me. I am so proud of you, Charis.

Here she and Kailey are showing off their Christmas tree, and a face on a gourd. That's how we celebrate Christmas in Maryland in the Ramsing family.

(Random phone call from their mom the other night:

Me: Hi!

Becky: (no hello) Get on Skype now! We're actually all together!! We need to do advent!!!

Oh. I. Love. Them. Can't wait to celebrate with you guys so soon.)

Sarah sent me this one titled "Christmas Baggé style" of a recent evening in DC. Love that she painted her own Christmas cards. Especially love the sweet note in mine I received last week. Love you, babe.

Matt and Amy each (way to go above and beyond, guys!) sent me this pic of

Christopher and Hannah decorating their tree with their cousin, in Maryland.

And the one below it Amy called their "Christmas card reject pic". I particularly like the way Christopher is strangling the cat...

Fun fact #1: I used to live in this house! With them! It was The Best. *sigh*

Fun fact #2:  I remember vividly all three of these tall creatures as infants.

Fun fact #3: The couch Christopher is standing on once belonged to my mother. Cute.

Aw, here's the lovely Christina in her very brand new St. Louis home. She explained this was her "make shift" tree: a plant under ornaments hanging on the wall. Great ingenuity, Chris!! (PS, love your face to the sun, very Mary Oliver.)

Chris's and my third musketeer, my BFF Claire and her roommate just hangin' out with Santa in MD.

My beautiful freshman roommate Amy with her and James' tree in San Diego. Wish we were celebrating together in our little dorm room together in Smith... as 18-year-olds... um well, no, but wish we were together, Ames!!

Who is this hiding, festive fellow? Why, it's Chet in New York! Hi, Chet!!

(added 12/24) My awesome met-them-the-first-day-of-college friends Gabe and Jana sent me this picture of their lovely tree- in their new home in Madrid, Spain!! I know my favorite geologist and writer couple are a blessing to any community they are in, anywhere in the world. MISS your faces.

My beautiful friend Helen from Connecticut just arrived back to the States after six months in Bolivia! Having once arrived back to the States at Christmastime after six months in Bolivia, I am beaming her lots of extra love right now. I am so proud of this girl and lovvedd getting to spend time with her when I was in Cochabamba in July.

Mary and Wolf 's family's FOUR stockings makes me so happy. I can't wait to hold their newest addition, Miss Lyla Grace born in August, when I get home to Maryland this weekend.

Check out that big huge THREE year old Rex, hanging his ornament!!

My sweet sweet precious friends Christine and Luke in their Glen Ellyn apartment. Their matching monogrammed stockings make me smile. I miss these two terribly. Lovely tree, guys.

Bourke and his roommates having way too much fun around their Christmas tree in Seattle.

Now this is the kind of celebrating I'm talking about!!!!

My love Elise hitting up the DC Christmas scene. I also got an ornament in the mail from this beautiful girl yesterday!! It made my heart so happy. Thanks, sweet, I love you!

It's the brand-new Mrs. Emily Miner!!! With her and Javan's first tree as a married couple, in Colorado. They are a shining star of HNGR coupledom, so I would bet good money most of the decorations in that house are fair-trade made in developing countries... (am I right, Em?)

Speaking of HNGR interns, here's one of "mine" in St. Louis, with her fam. Hayley was in the Best HNGR Small Group Ever (seriously, we won the award for 2011 interns). This girl always makes me laugh.

My crazy friend Josh in Wheaton entitled this photo, "A Christmas Snow Angel". And what a lovely holiday angel he is.

My sweet roommate Heather in Alabama!!! Gorgeous tree, Heath. Heather, our beautiful roommate Christine who's off being a rock star missionary in Thailand, and I are reading our awesome advent devotional together this year. Love those girls.

More awesome HNGR interns!! Kait and Wendy and a friend rocking the WHITE HOUSE Christmas tree in DC. Very hard core.

The lovely Kari with her tree in Seattle! I am so proud of this brand new certified massage therapist (rocking her brand new super cute short hair, btw. Love it, Kar.)

Josh and Meg in Illinois, just hangin' out decorating their tree. Personally I think this photo should go on a Christmas magazine cover somewhere. Oh I miss you guys.

It's the Improv Boys!! Steve, Marty, and Tim in front of the Christmas tree, showing off the matching Hardy books they all received as gifts (seriously). Oh boys.
(Total seriousness: I was SUPER nostalgic the other night wanting to go caroling and remembering when we went caroling two winters ago...)

My wonderful west-coast fam, the Qualls, cut down a tree from their very own tree farm in Idaho. I loved spending Thanksgiving with them this year! Represented in the top photo are Russ, Lisa, and about one third of their children. Following are their ever-entertaining and completely wonderful youngest three.

It's my crazy and fabulous photographer friends and world-traveling partners in crime, Tim and Asharae, with their tree in North Carolina!!

You might think Ash is just wearing that bow on her head to be silly for the picture...

but no no. She's just really stylish.

(Sign up to do a photoshoot with them and you can see for yourself!)

My housemates and dear friends Ryan and Kendra celebrating Langdon's first Christmas!!!
WOULD YOU PLEASE LOOK AT HOW CUTE THAT BABY IS OMG.
The bottom one is them lighting the Advent candle at church with his grandparents in Wheaton.
This baby makes me cry in joy and I can't hear enough about him, ever. (I just got off the phone with Kendra, so I mean it... I choke up in excitement when she tells me about cute things he does.)

These are the pictures that spurred the whole idea. My dear dear friend Matt and his boyfriend picked out an awesome Christmas tree in Chicago. Matt, knowing my need for connectedness to my community, emailed me these pictures a couple weeks ago and they made me SO HAPPY!

(*Clearly this is all about me and my needs. It had nothing to do with, "Matt got an awesome tree and wanted to share HIS joy." It was definitely about me.

...Okay, yes, I'm absurdly self-centered, but those of you who know Matt, and know me, and know each of our respective emotional needs, have to agree with me that most likely the decision to email me pics of the experience was at least in part for my benefit. Thank you bud.)

Fun Fact #1: That car like, represents my college experience. Oh Cally the car.

Fun Fact #2: I love this boy a lot.

And finally, my bosom friend and her new husband. With an adorable ornament... and Christmas nail polish (nice, Mayr)!). OH I love them and cannot wait to see this girl in MD TOMORROW!!!!

Well, I suppose it's only fair to close out with a Christmasy picture of me.

Here I sit, curled up in my cozy little attic house in Oregon.

Nothing I would love more than to have each of these faces sipping hot cocoa by my Christmas tree with me as I knit under my snowman quilt...

but having all of your pictures is a good second.

Thanks for participating in my holiday fun, oh beloved far-flung loved ones of mine.

In the gift of Christmas...

"In the gift of Christmas,

the unassailable, omnipotent God

became a baby,

giving us the ultimate example of letting our defenses down...

Christmas tells us that God became breakable and fragile.

God became someone we could hurt.

Why?

To get us back.

And if you believe this and take it into your life,

you're blessed.

As you take in the truth of what He did for you-

how loved and affirmed you are-

you'll be able to let down your defenses in your own relationships with other people.

You won't always need to guard your honor.

You'll be able to let the barriers down.

You'll be able to move into intimate relationships with other people.

What is in the package of Christmas?

His vulnerability for intimacy with us,

which gives us the vulnerability to be intimate with the people around us."

-Tim Keller

found in Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus

(so God imparts to human hearts... the dear Christ enters in.)

oh holy child of Bethlehem,

descend to us, we pray

cast out our sin and enter in

be born to us today

we hear the Christmas angels,

the great glad tidings tell

oh come to us, abide with us,

our Lord Emmanuel

Dec 18:

Three Gifts Miraculous...

*Talking to Ryan today, and he told me how Langdon sings along to "In Excelsis Deo".

*This town. Stopped by Steve and Diane's to borrow the board game Clue the other night, because of course; Breanna laughed at me. "It's so ridiculous that you ended up here. HERE. Of all places, you ended up in the perfect town for you."

*Feeling pretty amazed for the fact of the Incarnation. He made Himself vulnerable and weak, just to be in relationship with us...

(gifts calendar from "a holy experience")

.my plans today.

It's hard to sacrifice.

Today, I was introduced to someone new at church.

"This is Emily. She's in the PsyD program, and she adopted my family."

A nearby college student piped up, "Ha! Mine too!"

Another one, "Ours too. She hangs out with my grandparents."

At that moment, Michael, my "Oregon dad" walked by and patted the top of my head.

Drew said,

"Emily, you're just like that girl in Uganda."

By "that girl in Uganda", we clarified, he meant Katie Davis... If you don't know the story, you should definitely check it out, as it's pretty amazing.

 A girl about my age moved to Uganda for a gap year after high school and ended up staying.

She now runs a large child sponsorship program and has adopted thirteen young girls.

I can totally see the similarities between us.

My careful ensuring that I have at least one invitation to dinner every night of the week,

is exactly like someone who moved across the world from her family,

broke up with the love of her life,

skipped college,

works like crazy to feed a town full of people,

and is a full-time single mom to thirteen children.

I'm so glad someone finally noticed.

.connecticut.

what is there to say? nothing, except that like the rest of the country, my stomach hurts.

today when i got to my friends aaron and irene's house,

i scooped their five-year-old up and hugged him hard and long,

burying my face in his little-boy hair as he, oblivious, told me about how he helped his dad change the brake pads today.

last night i cuddled and laughed and ate nachos with my cohort at jeffrey and sheri's,

all of us gleeful and triumphant over finishing the hardest academic semester we've ever done.

it was good to be with them.

i dragged my finals-weary body out of bed early this morning and went to see some of my little girls play basketball.

i sat on the high-school-gym bleachers with their moms, and cheered as their lean, happy ten-year-old selves ran around the court, high-fiving each other and hustling to catch rebounds.

i thought of young women teaching elementary schoolers,

like this one,

and lynn, and christine,

until i couldn't anymore.

what else is there to do?

hold the ones you love.

.is ours.

"This is the word of the prophet:

'Unto us a child is born,

unto us a son is given'

(Isaiah 9:6).

This is for us the hardest point,

not so much to believe that He is the son of the virgin and God Himself,

as to believe that

the Son of God is ours."

-Martin Luther

found in Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus

A Tuesday afternoon during advent.

I'm doing dishes in soft pajama pants and a tank top, thankful to be home with only reading to do the rest of the day. The phone is pressed to my ear. My bread machine mixes yeast into flour behind me.

Her familiar voice from two time zones away, driving home to her husband after a day of teaching.

"I've been reading a lot of psalms on waiting."

I switch ears. Rinse the soap off a bowl, set it aside to dry.

"Oh yeah?"

"That one... oh, I can't remember the reference. It says 'I believe that I will see the goodness of the Lord. In the land of the living.'"

"Ohhh yeah... I love that one."

We sit quietly on the phone together for a few beats. I think about waiting. The waiting they've been doing, waiting I feel. I think about what a promise to see goodness in the land of the living might and might not mean.

She drives. I scrub the sponge across a cookie sheet. She completed paperwork for an IEP for one of her students this week and the special ed department was crazy helpful. I had my semester evaluation with my supervisor yesterday, it was unexpectedly encouraging. They're going out to dinner with friends from small group tonight. I bought quilt fabric today, gorgeous batiks in browns and greens.

"I've been hanging out in this passage in Isaiah..." I tell her.

Enlarge the place of your tent, and let your habitations be stretched out; do not hold back; lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes.

"Ohhhh."

We talk about it being hard to continue to make room- to keep stretching out, enlarging... in hope. Hard to continue to wait to see the goodness of the Lord in certain fallow places; to believe that we will see it here, "in the land of the living". Easier to put up walls, move on, stop hoping for certain things, stop allowing any empty space at all. Enlarge. Stretch. Lengthen. Strengthen. Do not hold back. Room-making words. Waiting words.

My full heart, as I connect with this beloved friend, baking bread in my little kitchen in the community I love. Her full heart, driving home to his arms, pouring herself out every day for the kids she believes in. Her waiting heart, her frustration and confusion, her cries to Him. My waiting heart, my fear and longings, my cries to Him.

Her dance performance this weekend was so much fun. She was supposed to babysit some friends' kids but they cancelled. My morning client didn't show so I got to start my day with a half hour reading over coffee. I have my tree up and friends have filled it with ornaments. So I'm considerinnngg this thing that probably doesn't make sense... well, sometimes God calls us to hard things, I'll be praying. Thanks, babe.

She's home, time to get ready to go out.

Love you. Love you. Talk to you this weekend. Sounds good.

My dishes are done. The dough is risen and ready to be put in the oven.

It's advent. We're full. We love. We're thankful and happy. And we wait.

"The celebration of Advent is possible only to those who are troubled in soul,

who know themselves to be poor and imperfect,

who look forward to something greater to come.

The Holy One Himself comes down to us,

God in the child in the manger.

God comes.

The Lord Jesus comes.

Christmas comes.

Christians rejoice!

We are no longer alone. God is with us."

-bonhoeffer

.live a quiet life and work with your hands.

i am extremely excited that i just bought this print
from tanamachi studio.

it's roughly 2 X 3 feet on high quality black cardstock,

and i can't wait to hang it in the hallway of my little home.

why i am so excited...

point number one...
this verse has been so important to me.

"we urge you to love one another more and more,
and to aspire to live quietly,
and to mind your own affairs,
and to work with your hands."
1 thes 4:13

i am bad at being global or exciting or cool.

(ok, i lived in bolivia for seven months.
but that was out of character.
and what did i do there?
i cuddled and chopped vegetables. i mean really.)

i am bad at doing 'important' things.

i like:
small town life and walks and hugs and creating safe spaces and talking and listening and laughing and drinking warm beverages with the people i love and looking at pine trees and trying to be faithful and finding joy in the mundane.

and time and again i come back to those very words...
i couldn't believe i was seeing so beautifully written out (i found it on pinterest, no less!).
live quietly. work with your hands.
it's in God's word.
a quiet, unassuming life, doing small beautiful things...
is good.

point number two:
it's so beautiful!!!
and it is made of CHALK
which is a look i'm all about right now
(i made a chalkboard for my kitchen and i LOVE IT)...

and it has all over it
(oh be still my heart)
pine cones.
and wildflowers.
and wheat.

oh hey let's design a print for emily goldberg oh ok thanks.

point. number. three.
by far not third in importance.
through 2012,
all the proceeds go to long-term aftercare for survivors of sex trafficking
through Restore NYC:
"we believe... in God's desire and power to transform".

which is why i'm posting it here.
in case you or someone you know would also love this print
all proceeds will go to be a blessing in an amazing way.
(and a way which is so important to me.
see bolivia, above.)

it comes in four colors and each color, i just noticed, goes to a different organization.
(i LOVE this artist.)
red goes to helping kids in kenya.
green goes to ending gun violence.
blue goes to victims of Hurricane Sandy.

you can purchase one here.
if you order it by tomorrow shipping is guaranteed by Christmas.

point number four.
i find people who design and create amazing.
i am so not an artist.
yet maybe it's having my own home for the first time,
and wanting people to feel safe and rested in this space..
this year i've been all about noticing and creating beauty.
it rocks.
influenced no doubt by my decade of best friendship with an incredible artist
and spending my summer with two more,
art just makes me amazed.
i see God's creativity reflected through people who create.

i spent too much time today stalki- i mean googling the artist,
dana tanamachi...
annnnnd now i love the print even more.
she has an incredible story-
check out this article in the Wall Street Journal
and this fabulous interview in The Great Discontent.

she loves Jesus
and she listed her favorite book as Celebration of Discipline by richard foster.
richard foster who is my second favorite author after henri nouwen
(well tied with wendell berry... and maybe madeleine l'engle)
and who USED TO BE THE PASTOR OF MY CHURCH HERE.
she talks about how her work comes out of the Christian values
of simplicity, solitude, contemplation, and celebration.
i want to be her best friend.
i always love art + music + words more when i know the person's story
(take for example, the weepies...)

So.
In Case You Were Unsure.
In Conclusion...
I Am Really Excited About My New Print.

let's just look at it again.



happy finals week.

.what two skinny girls eat for breakfast.

Breanna and I ventured into the Big City to meet up with our cohort members who were taking the PGRE last week. While we were waiting for them to finish we decided to stop by Voodoo.

Yup, that is in fact what we ordered. For the two of us.

Pictured: two Old Dirty Bastards (chocolate frosting, peanut butter, and Oreos), two Bacon Maple Bars, one Mexican Chocolate and one... Coconut snowball? or something.



I'm smiling now... but approximately ten minutes later I was sprawled on the bench moaning about how I was going to die.

Fried dough, chocolate, peanut butter, oreos, maple syrup, bacon, cinnamon, and coconut...
It was maybe a bit much. Ah well. Live and learn.

LOVE this girl. And so loving my cohort right now btw... I can.not.imagine doing this insane program without the support of that group of total weirdos.

.this, this is Christ the King.

"...But Israel's God was different.

He was definite, and His character was immutably fixed.

And they were to love Him for it with everything they had.

They were to love Him with all their heart.

In the seat of their deepest dreams and desires,

in the place where they wrestled with their sorrows and clung to flickering hopes,

they were to love Him...

In their creativity and in their learning,

in their working and in their resting,

in their building up and their tearing down,

they were to love Him.

They were to love Him as whole people,

in all their weakness and in all their strength.

On their best days and on their worst,

in the darkest hours of their loneliest nights,

and at the tables of their most abundant feasts,

they were to love Him.

This was the heart of Israel's religion: love.

Only divine love made sense of the world...

Israel's story was a story of being kept,

and the only reasonable response was to love the Keeper."

-Behold the Lamb of God

Counting Joy: Dec 1 & 2.

From Oregon, Alabama, and Thailand, Christine, Heather and I are doing our advent readings together.

from Day One:

"It wasn't just that God had promised to do it. It was that the reason He promised to do it was like an intimate promise between lovers. God's promised Messiah was a merciful gift of love to a people who needed both mercy and love. He would come to them in all their pain, brokenness, and struggle, and make everything new..."




















And I'm enjoying the "a holy experience" December calendar:

Dec 1:
3 Gifts White...

*The paper ornaments on my tree, made by my sweet elementary school girls over for the afternoon on Saturday. Snowflakes cut from coffee filters.

*Flour + sugar in my bread machine. Herb bread ready as I study.

*The Tasha Tudor edition of The Night Before Christmas I found at the library. $2, absolutely gorgeous condition.

Dec 2:
3 Gifts Bright...

*Sound + energy of an unusually full service at church on the first Sunday of Advent.

*Christmas lights all over my house. My favorite, favorite, favorite.

*Candle flames.

.prayer.

o come, thou Wisdom from on high

and order all things, far and nigh

to us the path of knowledge show,

and cause us in her ways to go

rejoice! rejoice!

Emmanuel shall come to thee,

O Israel

the perfect prayer for me right now...

and an advent one.

and a promise.

happy first day of advent.