By: Jeremy Case, Head of School

Last year ushered in an unexpected Christmas and the loss of many beloved holiday traditions. Even around Perimeter, things weren’t as merry and bright as they usually are. Perhaps this year for most, there’s a greater longing in us to return to the expected sights and sounds of the Advent season.

Beloved Traditions

What is your favorite Christmas tradition?

Advent candles are treasured in our home this time of year. Our family loves the daily anticipation of counting down the days and lighting the candles so that our hearts can prepare Him room during the busyness of the Christmas season. We love reading the scripture, telling the story, and singing the hymns and carols by the flickering glow of candlelight.

Advent celebrates the “coming” or “arrival” of Jesus Christ - our Emmanuel, God with us. Its purpose is to help us find special moments during the Christmas season to ponder and wonder in awe at Christ’s coming to earth - to behold the mystery, majesty, and miracle of His incarnation, just as the shepherds wondered and Mary pondered millennia ago.

Another of my favorite Christmas traditions is our annual Kindergarten Christmas Pageant at Perimeter School. This week our littlest hearts prepared Him room by leading those of us who have long since outgrown the childlike wonder of the Advent season to experience the thrilling hope of Christmas.

Through those still small five and six-year-old voices, the Christmas story speaks softly to my soul. It whispers to me this thrill of hope - that our God has not forgotten His promises to His people in this weary world. At His Advent, He has drawn near to us in the person of Christ - our rescuing and redeeming King!

Christmas traditions - even flickering Advent candles and children dressed as shepherds and the lowly beasts of the field and stable - are meant to whisper to our souls to rejoice in His coming, still our hearts to treasure the promise come true, and stir our minds to ponder the hope of the curse undone.

Let Us Rejoice

What are you hoping for and rejoicing in this season?

Christmas hymns and carols are tied to so many of our traditions, like Silent Night at a candlelight Christmas Eve service, and rooted in the prophecies and promises of Advent. One of my favorites is O Holy Night.

O holy night, the stars are brightly shining,
It is the night of the dear Savior’s birth;
Long lay the world in sin and error pining,
'Till he appeared and the soul felt its worth.
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn;

Our world has certainly been weary over the last two years, full of sin and error pining, yet these words were penned a century ago to mark the groan of all creation that has existed since the fall and first whisper of God’s great promise of hope.

As we celebrate the first advent this Christmas, the first coming of Jesus into our weary world, let’s rejoice in our God who chooses to enter into our weary state to bring a new and glorious morn. 

May God remind you of this hope that both encourages and transforms. And let’s not waste the thrill of this hope because we’re consumed by a weary world. Look for the scarlet thread who alone can tie each of your traditions to give you and your children truth, pointing us to Jesus and what it truly means to be His child and to hope in the assurance of God’s salvation this Christmas.

Merry Christmas, Perimeter School!