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8 3 Infusing Advent with Gratitude Aaron Johnson, MA Associate Dean of Educational Technology I nstead of birthdays, our family celebrates birthweeks. Of course, that includes our daughters' actual birthdays, but we begin each celebration on the Sunday before the big event. We leave notes of gratitude, make their favorite meals, indulge in more ice cream than usual, and surprise them with little gifts. Our seven-day celebrations color the week with special attention and gratitude for having that person as a part of our life and family. is tradition has helped me better understand the season of Advent. It is a time of attending, gratitude, and anticipation. On the afternoon of Christmas Day, I often feel like I've missed something. I wonder how our family might have better enjoyed the Christmas season and allowed holy celebration to capture our attention. In the past, my reaction was to invent an elaborate family tradition and to get bogged down in the complexity of it all. But our birthweek celebrations taught me that little things matter. Now during Advent, we add to our dinner prayers a thanksgiving for Jesus coming to us. We recognize His desire to be Immanuel, "God with us." When my children were six and eight, we read this devotional booklet at bedtime. ose small, repeated moments have the power to draw our attention to Jesus in the midst of a season characterized by distraction. In our birthweeks and during Advent, the theme of our hearts becomes gratitude. is summer, we drove up Old Fall River Road in Rocky Mountain National Park. Along the way, we stopped to take in two waterfalls, explored an alpine meadow laden with wildflowers, and took a family photo in the high country. Driving down the mountainside, I was overwhelmed with gratitude for being alive and for the opportunity to take in such beauty. e long drive of Advent offers us a similar chance to take in the sights and sounds of our Lord's intentions, in both His coming and His promise to come again. ose experiences have the power to warm our hearts and make us grateful people. Most of us can remember the intense anticipation we experienced as children leading up to Christmas Day. Celebrating the weeks of Advent has the power to recapture that sense of anticipation, to gather up all our remembering and gratitude into a day of worship and celebration that makes Christmas a transforming event for us and our families. December "BUT MARY TREASURED UP ALL THESE THINGS AND PONDERED THEM IN HER HEART." - LUKE 2:19