Who kept my hope alive this year?
Tonight is the week's celebration night. All week, everyone has been noticing who kept walking with them while they waited. Tonight the second candle is lit from the first with the house lights off, everyone reads the gold ornaments by candlelight, and the household plans three days of giving hope. Plan on about 40 minutes, plus any meal or extra you add.
Remember: light the second candle from the first, in the dark.
Rejoice: the Opening. Everyone reads the gold ornaments with their name on them.
Ready: make the Plan for December 12 to 14.
The Second Candle
Supplies: the Generosity candle and a second candle for Hope, in holders (or the tins or battery candles you chose), and a long-neck lighter.
Instructions:
Turn off the house lights, as many as you can, so the candles will be the only light in the room. The candle you light tonight is lit from last week's, so it carries the same light your household started on December 4.
Read to the kids: Last week grace came in, and we passed it on. Hope means wanting something good and walking toward it, even when nobody can promise how it ends. Tonight the same light goes to a second candle, and hope gets added to our answer.
A grown-up leads each line, and everyone says it back. On "Grace comes in," relight the Generosity candle with the lighter. On "Passed along," tilt the Hope candle's wick into that flame until it catches, and set the new candle where everyone can see it. Everyone can do the hand motions in parentheses, but they're optional.
Grown-up: Grace comes in. (Cup both hands, palms up.)
All: Grace comes in.Grown-up: Gratitude sees it. (Point to your eyes.)
All: Gratitude sees it.Grown-up: And graciousness passes it on. (Open your hands toward the new candle.)
All: And graciousness passes it on.Grown-up: What do we pass on?
All: Generosity and hope.Grown-up: One light.
All: One light.Grown-up: Passed along. (Light the Hope candle.)
All: Passed along.
Alternative Liturgy: Ancient Light Version
For families who want it, these words can replace the ones above. Relight the Generosity candle without words, then light the Hope candle while a grown-up or an older kid reads:
Reader: About seven hundred years before Jesus, a prophet in Jerusalem named Isaiah, someone who spoke to the people for God, wrote to a nation that was scared and waiting in the dark: "The people walking in darkness have seen a great light."
All: One light, passed along.
Leave both candles burning for the Opening.
Tins or battery candles: light each tin with the lighter, the first one first. For battery candles, switch on the first, then the second.
Didn't plan ahead? Any two candles work tonight.
Kids: give a kid the job of turning off the lights, and let everyone look around at what the two candles light up before you start the Opening.
The Opening
Supplies: the gold ornaments on the tree, and the two lit candles.
Instructions:
On December 8, everyone wrote a gold ornament to each person in the house, thanking them for a time they kept going with them toward something that might not have happened. Tonight you read them.
It works the same way as last week. Each person finds the gold ornaments with their own name on the front, takes them down, and brings them to the candles. Take turns reading them out loud by candlelight. Anyone may read privately, and a grown-up reads to each child who can't read yet. The red and white ornaments stay on the tree, and the gold ones go to their owners (into the stockings, if you hung them).
The Plan
Supplies: paper and a pen, and a lamp turned back on so you can see to write.
Instructions:
Three days of receiving hope turn into three days of giving it. Write one line together for each kind of giving:
Time (December 12): who is in a long, hard wait, and when will you spend time with them?
Resources (December 13): whose "maybe" could you help pay for, and what will you give? For suggested organizations, see the facilitation notes on Day 6.
Words (December 14): who needs to hear who you see them becoming?
Like last week, put the Plan where everyone will see it in the morning.
Optional. Add one if your family wants more tonight, or skip them.
The Lights Drive. After the Plan, blow out the candles, bundle up, and drive or walk around to look at Christmas lights. These are some of the longest nights of the year, and a street full of lights is a good picture of this week: light that helps people keep going when the dark lasts a long time. Let each person pick a favorite house along the way and say what they like about it.
Lucia Morning. In Sweden, Norway and Finland, mostly Lutheran countries, families keep December 13 as Saint Lucia's Day, a festival of light in the darkest weeks of the year. As the legend goes, Lucia, a young woman from Sicily who died around the year 304, carried food to Christians hiding underground and wore candles on her head to keep both hands free. People keep the day to remember that kindness: a girl in white with a crown of candles leads a procession and brings saffron buns (lussekatter). Try it at breakfast on December 13. Let a kid wear a paper or battery candle crown (never real flames on a child) and carry a plate of buns to everyone: store-bought buns, or any sweet bread you have.
Kids' story: read "The Tail Train" from The Overflow Adventure in Wanderful Woods together.
Time: about 40 minutes: 5 for the candles, 15 to 20 for the Opening, and 10 to 15 for the Plan. The lights drive adds whatever your route takes.
Short on time? Light the candles, read the ornaments, and write only tomorrow's Time line. The rest of the Plan can wait until morning.
In the dark: clear the path to the tree before the lights go off, or hand a flashlight to whoever is walking there.
Leading the words: an older kid can lead the Grown-up lines. With two leaders, one can say the lines while the other handles the candles.
Blow the candles out before bed. Next week both get relit, and the third candle is lit from the second.
Hello, my wonderful story friends! Last time, the frost drew a sparkly staircase up a rock wall, and Mr. Monkey said yes before he knew how, and climbed it. Tonight is a Celebrate night in Sunny Square, and there’s a second candle waiting to be lit.
Have you ever gone out at night just to look at the lights? Let’s go see what the friends see.
The sky over Sunny Square was turning from blue to purple, and the first stars were coming out one at a time, as if somebody was lighting them. The snow had a hard, crunchy crust on top, and every step went krrunch, krrunch.
Everybody gathered by the fire. The first light stood on its flat stone, burning steady in a fresh candle Mama Moose had lit from the old one that morning. Next to it stood a brand-new candle, not lit yet.
“Last week,” said Mama Monkey, “we lit the first light. Tonight, the second one comes from the first. This one’s for the light that keeps us walking.”
Mr. Monkey took a twig and held it to the first candle until it caught. Then he carried the tiny flame over to the new one, very slowly, both hands around it.
He touched it to the wick. It caught. Now two candles burned side by side, the new one and the old one, with the squash lantern glowing on the Wishing Tree behind them.
“Now,” said Mama Monkey, “the gold circles.”
Everybody went to the little green pine and found the gold circles with their own faces. Daddy Moose turned his over and found the little hill, and the little moose with the sack on his back, and the big moose walking right beside him. He looked at it for a long time. Then he put it carefully inside his coat, right next to his heart.
Mama Monkey found the one about swimming. She laughed out loud, a big happy laugh, and hugged Mr. Monkey so hard his feet came off the ground.
And Mr. Monkey found one he didn’t expect. It had his face on the front. He turned it over. On the back, somebody had painted a gray wall with a white staircase on it, and a tiny monkey at the very top, hanging on to a pine tree.
“From me,” said Mama Monkey. “For saying yes.”
Mr. Monkey looked at it so long that the candles flickered twice.
Over on the little pine, one red circle was missing: the one with Mama Hedgehog’s tiny nose on the front. Nobody had seen her come. Nobody had seen her go.
Then Mr. Moose said, “Can we go look at the lights?”
“What lights?” asked Bruno.
“All of them,” said Mr. Moose. “From up high.”
So everybody bundled up, and they set out for Lookout Ledge, not up the littlest trail, but around the back way, where the walking was easy, even in the dark.
The path was dark under the trees. Very dark. Mr. Monkey went first, because he could see best.
Mr. Moose came right behind him and held on to the end of Mr. Monkey’s tail with his mouth, very gently, so he wouldn’t get lost. Then Hazel held on to Mr. Moose’s tail, which was very short, so it was hard. Then Dottie held on to Hazel’s tail. Then Benji, then Ricky, then Shiloh.
And Bruno came last, holding on to Shiloh’s tail, which was mostly wool.
“All aboard!” called Mr. Monkey from the front. “It’s the Tail Train!”
“Choo choo!” said Dottie, through Hazel’s tail.
They went krrunch, krrunch, krrunch up the dark path, all in a long wiggly line. When Mr. Monkey went left, everybody went left. When Mr. Monkey went right, everybody went right. When Mr. Monkey hopped over a log, everybody hopped over the log, one after another, hop, hop, hop, hop, hop, hop, hop, and Bruno hopped last, THUMP.
Then Hazel sneezed. “AH-CHOO!”
Every single animal on the Tail Train jumped at the same time.
“Hee hee hee… SNORT!” went Hazel.
“Hee hee hee!” went Mr. Monkey. “The Tail Train jumped!”
“Haw haw haw!” went Bruno from the very back. “I jumped AND I’m still holding on!”
Then, halfway up, Dottie smelled something. A wonderful something, off to the side of the path. She let go of Hazel’s tail to sniff it. And the front half of the Tail Train kept going up the hill, while the back half, Dottie, Benji, Ricky, Shiloh and Bruno, followed Dottie’s nose right into a big snowy bush. FLUMPF.
“The train broke!” called Ricky from inside the bush.
“Ha! Ha!” barked Dottie, with snow on her nose. “Sorry! It smelled like cocoa!”
So Mr. Monkey came back down, and everybody grabbed a tail again, and the Tail Train was all in one piece.
And then the trees opened up, and they came out on top of Lookout Ledge, and they all let go of each other’s tails and stood very still.
Down below them was Wanderful Woods, in the dark.
And it was full of lights.
There was the Moose home, its window glowing gold under the big maple. There was the squash lantern on the Wishing Tree, and the two candles by the fire in Sunny Square, tiny as fireflies from up here.
But there were more. Over by the hollow oak, a little light in the mouse family’s window. By the beavers’ lodge, another one. On the old crow’s branch by the river, one more, swinging gently.
At the old badger’s den, a light by his mended roof. And way down at the foot of the ledge, by the big gray rock, Mama Hedgehog’s snow lantern, still glowing at the bottom of the littlest trail.
And there were even more than that. Lights nobody had left. Lights in windows they had never been to. Somebody had seen a little light by their neighbor’s door, and they’d lit one too. And then their neighbor had. All over the woods.
“Look how many,” whispered Benji.
Shiloh tried to count them. “One, two, three, four… eleven… twenty…” He stopped. “They keep coming,” he said softly. Every time he counted one, he found another behind it.
“We only left five,” said Ricky, counting. “There are… a whole bunch.”
Mr. Monkey felt it bubble up inside him, warm and big. Every one of those little lights had started with the Feast fire. The Feast fire went into the squash lantern. The squash lantern went into the Moose home, and into the snow lanterns, and into the candles. And now it was everywhere, going from door to door, all by itself.
Then Mr. Moose looked up.
Above them, past the dark trees, rose the great gray shape of Everest’s cliff. It was the highest place in the whole woods. And it was the only place that was completely dark.
Not one light. Not even one.
Everybody looked up at it.
“That’s the only dark one left,” said Mr. Monkey softly.
Mr. Moose didn’t say anything for a long time. He was thinking. About the little hill behind the maple. About the littlest trail. About the frost staircase and the rope tied to the little pine. They had climbed so far. But it was still so far to go.
“That’s where it needs to go,” he said at last. “The lantern. All the way to the top.”
“Tomorrow?” asked Mr. Monkey.
Mr. Moose looked at the cliff. Then he looked at his friends, and at all the little lights below. “Tomorrow,” he said.
They rode the Tail Train back down the dark path, slower this time, because everybody was tired and happy. Back in Sunny Square, Mama Monkey had hot acorn cocoa waiting, and they drank it by the two candles, and nobody talked very much, because nobody needed to. Bruno drank his in one gulp and had a cocoa mustache all the way home.
“What a day!” said Mr. Monkey. “I lit the second candle from the first one. Mama painted me saying yes. We rode the Tail Train up Lookout Ledge, and Hazel sneezed, and the whole train jumped. We saw lights all over the woods, even ones we didn’t leave. And Everest’s cliff is the only dark place left.”
Mr. Monkey whistled, and Mr. Moose hummed, and together they sang:
We are better together,
Moose and Monkey forever.
And all over Wanderful Woods, little lights glowed in little windows, while high above them all, the dark cliff waited under the stars.