The Big White Farmhouse

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Merry Christmastide!  During this joyous time of year, I’ve been thinking about Pope Saint John Paul II’s 2001 Midnight Mass homily entitled Proclaim Christ Child’s Message Of Hope Throughout The World.  I hope it fills you with hope, joy and peace as it did me.

Like the shepherds, we too on this wonderful night cannot fail to experience the desire to share with others the joy of our encounter with this “child wrapped in swaddling cloths“, in whom the saving power of the Almighty is revealed. We cannot pause in ecstatic contemplation of the Messiah lying in the manger, and forget our obligation to bear witness to him.

In haste we must once more set out on our journey. With joy we must leave the cave of Bethlehem in order to recount everywhere the marvel which we have witnessed. We have encountered light and life! In him, love has been bestowed upon us.

We welcome you with joy, Almighty Lord of heaven and earth, who out of love became a Child “in Judea, in the city of David, which is called Bethlehem” (Lk 2:4).

We welcome you with gratitude, new Light rising in the night of the world.

We welcome you as our brother, the “Prince of Peace“, who “made of the two one people” (cf. Eph 2:14).

Fill us with your gifts, you who did not hesitate to begin human life like us. Make us children of God, you who for our sake desired to become a son of man (cf. Saint Augustine, Homilies, 184).

You, “Wonder-Counsellor“, sure promise of peace; you, powerful presence of the “God-Hero“; you, our one God, who lie poor and humble in the dim light of the stable, welcome us around your crib.

Come, peoples of the earth, open to him the doors of your history! Come to worship the Son of the Virgin Mary, who descended among us, on this night prepared for down the centuries.

Night of joy and peace.

Venite, adoremus!

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Hoping to document the abundance around me all year long!

Around here, abundance looks like…

+ attending Midnight Mass.  There is something so beautiful about entering a warm chapel in the middle of a dark, cold night.  Our little Oratory was packed – standing room only! – and I felt waves of gratitude for the ability to celebrate His birth with all of these people right as the clock stuck twelve.  What a way to begin the Christmas festivities!

+ a wonderfully simple Christmas morning.  My kids always receive only three gifts each (along with their stockings), so I try to choose items very intentionally.  Some years are a bust, but I think I did okay this year!  Some hits: a personal Keurig machine, a leather jacket, a wood carving kit and book for inspiration, a wearable throw blanket, an old-school boombox for listening to music and audiobooks, and Legos.

+ picking up next year’s wrapping paper for 50% off.  I needed a few skeins of embroidery floss at the craft store and popped into Homegoods next door to check on the paper.  They still had a decent selection and I found four simple designs that will work for next year!  I saved $8.

+ taking inventory of all of my craft supplies.  I have collected a lot of items over the years and I think 2025 is the year that I use ’em or lose ’em.  I organized my rolling cart with materials and I’m excited to start making beautiful things.

Reading //

• Keeping a Long Christmas from Charles Coulombe at Crisis Magazine
• Making mixtapes from Austin Kleon // This is such a fun creative project.

New Additions to The List // 

• Saint Thomas Aquinas: The Person and His Work by Jean-Pierre Torrell
• The Domestic Revolution: How the Introduction of Coal into Victorian Homes Changed Everything by Ruth Goodman
• Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Virgin Mary: Unveiling the Mother of the Messiah by Brant Pitre
• The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper by Roland Allen

Watching/Listening //

• Lessons 1-2 of the Introduction to St. Thomas Aquinas course from Aquinas 101 at the Thomistic Institute
• some of the episodes of Something Was Wrong Season 20 // This catfishing story was WILD.

Loving //

• this French holy card that roughly translates to: “The Christmas Lullaby: with Mary, let us watch over the child Jesus, let us sing His praises, let us admire His beauty, let us contemplate His grace, let us adore His divinity!”

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A reminder to myself, my children and maybe anyone who needs the nudge: look up.

We live in an age where we’re seemingly always attached to our screens.  Our necks ache from that consistent downward posture, we walk around like zombies.  We feel that invisible chain of constant attachment, we acknowledge the unconscious compulsion that urges us to check “just one more thing.”

It’s not just technology, though.  We spend so much time intensely focused on our struggles and crosses, the flaws on our bodies, the appearance of our homes.  We fill these inadequacies with food and fillers and new purchases from Amazon.  We don’t mean to be selfish – maybe we don’t even see ourselves that way – but we’re swept up in the everyday battles of life with our eyes firmly concentrated on our navels.

Of course, as Thomas Aquinas encourages, virtue is found in the middle.  I don’t mean to say that the only alternative to our age is to be a technological Luddite, completely forgetting about our appearance and home.  But there is a better way and one that I need to remember.

Look up.  Look at the beauty of the world around you.  Look at the suffering of others and seek ways to help alleviate some of that pain.  Make eye contact with strangers.  Smile.  Look up.

Hoping to document the abundance around me all year long!

Around here, abundance looks like…

+ saying goodbye to a piece of home decor.  This is so silly, but I have had the same wicker laundry basket since I went away to college in 2003.  Twenty-one years of use!  Sadly this year, bigger and bigger pieces started snapping off – a handle here, a big hunk on the side there – and try as I might, it’s just not salvageable.  I’m sad to see her go, but I definitely think I got my money’s worth, ha!

+ making bows for the little pre-lit tree decorations on either side of our front door.  I already had a roll of wired ribbon in my Christmas stash and after watching this tutorial, I got to work!  So simple but with a big impact.

+ selling eleven unneeded items for the Car Loan Payoff Plan: seven books, a dress and three DVDs.  After shipping and fees, I made $41.86.  And great news: I have to double-check some numbers in our budget, but I think we’ll be able to pay off the remaining balance by New Year’s!  One step closer to financial freedom.

Reading //

• The Rules of Discernment: A Practical Guide – Rule 3 from Megan Hjelmstad at Spiritual Direction // “Chasing material, emotional, or worldly consolation might initially get us what we want, but we will only be momentarily appeased. Seeking spiritual consolation allows us to be more joyful and at peace regardless of our circumstances.”
• Blue-collar jobs might be the best jobs from Elle Griffin at The Elysian // I’ve been diving deep into this topic after finishing Shop Class as Soulcraft last week.  A similar argument could definitely be made for farming!
• A Renaissance is Upon Us from Nate Marshall at The Blue Scholar // “But with the schools listed above, taking up a hammer, let’s say, is an embodied act that demands the recruitment of the interior life such that what its face is applied to is ordered rightly: both to spec, making it technically good, and to Jesus, making it liturgically oriented. Tech support and Our Lord ought to be pleased with our good work.”
• Christmas in Heaven: Stefan Lochner’s ‘Madonna in the Rose Garden’ from Denis McNamara at Benedictine College // “Though at first glance The Virgin in the Rose Garden presents the unified simplicity of a woman with a child sitting in a bucolic setting, it then presents layers of fascinating detail like the womb of the Virgin itself: strawberries in the field symbolize the blessed souls in heaven, angles with wings like peacock feathers symbolize glorified eternity, apples being offered to Christ to signify the undoing of the poisonous fruit eaten by Adam and Eve. To ponder the mysteries of the painting is to ponder the mysteries of God himself: profoundly simple and endlessly fascinating.”

New Additions to The List // 

• The Good Good Pig: The Extraordinary Life of Christopher Hogwood by Sy Montgomery
• Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by Eric Metaxas
• Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
• Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis

Watching/Listening //

• Preparing for Christmas through the O Antiphons from The Norbertine Fathers of St. Michael’s Abbey
• 3 Books That Made Me Obsessive | The Home Librarian Series from The Commonplace
• The Impossible Cleanup That Followed The End Of WW2 from War Stories

Loving // the incredibly kind women who have visited my blog this year.  I am so grateful that you choose to spend your time here with me and I have been so blessed by your comments and emails and financial support on my Ko-fi site.  (Thank you especially to Natalie!)  What a gift it is to pursue the intellectual life with such diverse and interesting women.  I can’t wait to see what we’ll learn in 2025!

Wishing you a very Merry Christmas from my family to yours. xo