Bonus: The Thankful Season and Presents!

A FREE Advent Download for the Four Sunday Readings (Plus Emmanuel Poems Chapbook for $4.99!)

Hello new readers and faithful friends! How kind of you to make space for my words in your Inbox—I do not take it lightly. Welcome to new subscribers Tristan, Laura, Michelle, Anna, Emily, Dolores, Mark, Jere, Asha, Julie, Alicia + others whose email addresses are a mystery. Smile.

Do you ever stop in your tracks and notice the way light falls?

You might recall in my last post I mentioned I’d be taking a November/December holiday season break from writing to you. Well. I couldn’t let the current Thanksgiving and Christmas season pass us by without sharing two things. Three, actually.

One—my thanks to you and grateful appreciation for your reading and connection here on Poetry & Made Things. Your participation and presence warms my heart. There are nearly 600 of us—wow!

Two—To commemorate the upcoming Christmas holidays I have a small gift to accompany you in this upcoming Advent season.

Advent is from the Latin ‘adventus’ meaning ‘to come’. It is the 40 ish day period prior to Christmas in which we can pause and prepare our hearts as we look forward to celebrating Christ’s coming into the world as Emmanuel, God with us.

In the church calendar each of the Sundays offer a reflective focus anchored with four different words and Scripture readings. The touchstone words are WAIT PREPARE JOY and LOVE (different churches may have variations).

Advent begins this year on December 1st¹—so, soon!—and you can be ready to observe the season with these small Scripture cards I made you. To access the link for a FREE DOWNLOAD of the four Sunday words and Scriptures, simply click the button below.

These four Scripture reading cards for each Sunday are downloadable, printable and cut-outable to use however works best for you. And if Advent wreaths and candlelighting are a new practice, a simple approach is best. Simply pausing once a week to center yourself around the meaning of Christmas is a wonderful start.

You can read more how-to’s here on my Christmas book website. (Shhhh….. long time readers know about my little red and white book, the rest of you might be surprised!)

Three

Speaking of Emmanuel, I am tickled to share that my 12-poem collection, Emmanuel Poems-Verses for the Holidays is now available as a print chapbook. Subscribers can access the ebook/Kindle HERE via Amazon ($2.99), as a PDF Download on my author website HERE ($3.99). But what’s even more fun, especially for those readers who are new-ish to poetry, a copy of the signed print chapbook is the now available. If you’ve ever wanted to dip your toes into poetry but felt intimidated about where to start, Emmanuel Poems: Verses for the Holidays chapbook is a great place to start.

Signed copies are $4.99 + $2.00 postage. You can order your copy HERE. Below is a short description of what you’ll find in Emmanuel Poems:

Emmanuel means ‘God with us,’ Christ’s title that umbrellas the theme of these twelve poems. The subjects move slowly through the season of Christmastide, from Advent-a time of waiting and preparation-to Epiphany-Christ’s presentation to the world and our sending out to ‘go and tell.’

Poems begin with reflections on the challenges of the holiday season in “Search.Light.” and the work of aligning our hearts to resist underneath-the-surface pressures to create a ‘perfect Christmas.’ Moving through Mary’s response to Gabriel’s message, then tracing Christ’s birth, His dedication and the miraculous appearance to the Magi, readers are reminded of the reason for Christ’s birth.

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Once again let me say how thankful I am for you all here in the Poetry & Made Things community, and for your presence. (See what I did there!) And if you order a copy of Emmanuel Poems I’ll be able to get it to you before Christmas……..as quickly as I can!

Have a blessed holiday season~

Jody

1. Those Advent calendars at Starbuck’s and Trader Joe’s? The ones that just have 25 days? Well many years (most years) the first day of Advent is in late November, according to St. Martin’s Day, if I’m not mistaken (you can look it up), NOT on December 1st. This year we got lucky.