Love · Day 3
Thursday, December 31, 2026
Receive ItCosmos
Today in the WoodsThe Last Night of the Year
Today in the WoodsThe Last Night of the Year
Where did love find me this year from beyond anyone's grip?
Matthew tells the Christmas story from Joseph's side, and it starts with bad news. Joseph is engaged to Mary, and before they live together, she turns out to be pregnant. He knows the child isn't his.
Matthew says Joseph "was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace," so he plans to end the engagement quietly. Then, in a dream, a messenger from God tells him not to be afraid to take Mary home as his wife, because the child is from God. And the messenger gives him the child's name: "She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins."
Matthew adds a second name, from an old promise by the prophet Isaiah: "The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel" (which means "God with us").
When Joseph wakes up, he does what he was told. He takes Mary home, and when the boy is born, Joseph names him Jesus.
It's a small scene with a real cost in it. In a small town, Joseph's yes may have meant whispers for the rest of his life. He takes them on and gives the child his name anyway. He's the first person in Matthew's story to love this child at a cost. But the names are bigger than Joseph. They're about what the child himself would do.
The name Jesus is the Greek form of an old Hebrew name, Joshua, which means "God saves." The messenger ties the name to a job: "he will save his people." Matthew's story goes on to Jesus's death on a Roman cross, and his followers came to see that death as the rescue the first name promised. A rescue like that costs the rescuer.
The second name, Immanuel, means "God with us." It's about presence, God coming near. The Prelude used that name to show that the gift was a person. Matthew also shows what kind of presence that name means, and he saves it for the very last line of his account. There, Jesus tells his followers, "Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." Many readers hear that line answering the name from Matthew's first chapter. The child called "God with us" is the one who, at the very end, promises his followers he will never leave them.
Put the two names together, and they draw the shape of agape at its fullest. Agape comes near and stays, even when staying costs everything. The first name points to the cost, and the second points to the staying.
That's also why tonight fits the widest circle. Some of the love that reached us this year came from beyond anyone's grip. The sun spends itself every day so that plants can grow, and a fruit tree pours what it has into fruit it will never eat. Many people feel loved by God in exactly the way tonight's story describes, near and staying, at a cost. None of it was earned, none of it can be paid back, and all of it can be thanked.
What love reached you this year that you never earned and couldn't repay?
Each person takes one white paper star.
On the front, write the name that fits for you: "God," "Spirit," "the Universe," "Grace," or "Life."
On the back, write one way love reached you this year that you couldn't have earned. "Thank you for the nurse who held my hand when no one else could be there."
Tape it near the top of the tree, writing toward the wall. White stars stay on the tree.
Then step back. The Star of Agape has a whole constellation around it now.
Kids' story: read "The Last Night of the Year" together, from The Overflow Adventure in Wanderful Woods.
Time: 10 to 15 minutes.
With kids: ask, "What's something good that happened to you this year that you didn't do anything to get?" A child can draw it on the back of the star.
Mixed beliefs at the table: some people will write "God" and some won't. Let both stand.
Tomorrow is New Year's Day, the last Celebrate day. A few minutes on New Year's Eve are enough:
Set out all four candles, a fifth candle for Love, and the lighter.
Find a pen and some paper or a sticky note for tomorrow's plan.
If you're doing the name draw, cut a slip of paper for each person.
If you're having Basil's bread, buy or bake it today, or decide which bread you'll use. Some stores close early on New Year's Eve or stay closed on New Year's Day.
Read Day 4 once ahead of time, including the note for grown-ups at the very end. If something isn't ready, tomorrow still works.
Hello, my wonderful story friends! Last time, Mr. Moose and Mr. Monkey pulled the sled as one, all the way through the bramble patch, and found the little dark home. It belongs to Granny Mabel, a tiny old mouse. But their lantern went out on the way. Tonight is the very last night of the year.
Have you ever stayed with somebody so they wouldn’t be alone? Let’s go see who stays with Granny Mabel.
The last day of the year was cold and bright, and the snow sparkled so hard in the sun that it looked like the whole woods was covered in tiny stars. Icicles hung from every branch, and when the wind blew, they tinkled together, ting-a-ling-ting.
In Sunny Square, everybody was getting ready for the Last Night Party. There would be games, and music, and hot apple cider, and at midnight, the whole woods would shout goodbye to the old year and hello to the new one. Mr. Monkey had been waiting for it all week.
But in the morning, Mr. Moose and Mr. Monkey had gone back through the brambles to Granny Mabel’s, with Mama Moose, to see how she was doing.
Granny Mabel was sitting in her tiny chair by her tiny cold fireplace, wrapped in one of the blankets they had brought. Her tiny home was very neat and very clean, with a tiny teapot and tiny teacups and a tiny bed. And it was very, very dark.
“My leg doesn’t work so well anymore,” said Granny Mabel. “I can’t walk far. I can’t carry wood. So when my last candle burned out, a long time ago, I just… sat in the dark.” She smiled at them. “But I’m used to it. You two run along to your party. I’ll be just fine.”
Mr. Monkey looked at her, so small in her big blanket, in her dark little home, on the last night of the year.
And he couldn’t go. He just couldn’t. Not to the party. Not with Granny Mabel sitting here by herself.
“Mr. Moose,” he whispered. “She’s going to be all alone tonight. On the last night of the whole year.”
Mr. Moose thought about it. “Granny Mabel,” he said, “we could bring you a candle from home tonight.” Granny Mabel shook her head, very gently. “Not tonight, dear. I’ve had the dark a long time. Tonight I’d just like some company.”
“Then we won’t go to the party,” said Mr. Moose. “We’ll stay here. With her.”
Mr. Monkey’s mouth fell open. Then it closed. Then he nodded, hard. “We’ll stay.”
Granny Mabel blinked behind her spectacles. “But your party, dears,” she said. “All your friends. The games, and the cider, and midnight…”
“We want to stay with you,” said Mr. Monkey.
So Mama Moose went home and told everybody, and then she and Daddy Moose came back with more blankets and a basket of food, and lay down in the snow right outside the tiny door to wait.
So Mr. Moose and Mr. Monkey stayed.
Mr. Monkey fit inside Granny Mabel’s home just fine, if he scrunched up a little. But Mr. Moose was much, much too big. He tried to go through the door anyway, and only his nose fit. So he lay down in the snow outside, and pushed his nose in through the tiny round door, as far as it would go.
His big moose nose took up almost the whole room.
“Hello,” said Mr. Moose. His nose was inside. The rest of him was outside.
“Hee hee hee!” went Mr. Monkey. “Mr. Moose is a nose!”
“Eek-eek,” went Granny Mabel, in a tiny squeaky laugh, holding on to her spectacles. “I’ve never had a nose for a guest before.”
Granny Mabel made tea in her tiny teapot. She poured a cup for Mr. Monkey, and a cup for Mr. Moose. But a mouse teacup was very, very small, and when Mr. Moose took a sip, his tongue went in, and the whole cup was gone, cup and all, SHLUP.
“Oops,” said Mr. Moose, and very carefully, he gave the cup back. It was a little bit wet.
“Ha-ha-ha!” laughed Mr. Moose.
“Hee hee hee!” went Mr. Monkey.
Granny Mabel told them stories, in the dark. Stories from when she was a tiny young mouse, and the woods were young too. She told them about the time she rode down Rainbow River on a leaf. About the year it snowed so much that her front door was on the roof. About a winter long, long ago, when the sky danced, and she saw it.
“I saw it too!” said Mr. Monkey. “Last week! The sky danced again!”
“Did it?” said Granny Mabel softly. “I didn’t know. I was in here.”
And that made Mr. Monkey even more glad they stayed.
It got later and later. Far away, through the trees, they could hear the party in Sunny Square: music and laughing and a big cheer every now and then. Mr. Monkey listened. He thought about the games.
He thought about the apple cider. Then he looked at Granny Mabel, wrapped up in her blanket, telling stories in the dark, happier than she’d been in a long time. And he scooted closer to her.
Mr. Moose’s nose fell asleep first. Then the rest of him. He snored, and because his nose was inside the tiny home, every snore rattled all the tiny teacups on the tiny shelf. Hrrrrrnk… rattle-rattle-rattle. Hrrrrrnk… rattle-rattle-rattle.
Just then, Sammy came zipping through the brambles from the party, with a little cup of apple cider for Mr. Monkey. She heard the snoring and stopped. “Is that a moose,” she whispered, “or a THUNDERSTORM?” And she zipped right back to the party, so fast she forgot to leave the cider.
“Hee hee hee!” whispered Mr. Monkey. “It’s not a thunderstorm. It’s a snore-nose!”
“A snore… nose,” whispered Granny Mabel. “Eek-eek-eek!” Her spectacles slid right down to the end of her own tiny nose.
And then, right before midnight, they heard it. A great whoosh of wings, outside the door. Something very big landed in the snow, so softly that hardly a flake moved.
Mr. Monkey peeked out the tiny window.
It was Everest Eagle.
Everest had come all the way down from the top of his cliff, the highest place in the whole woods, to the very smallest home in the whole woods. He looked through the tiny window at Granny Mabel.
Then he stepped close to her little home, and spread his great wings out wide, all the way around it, like a roof over a roof. And the cold wind stopped. Right away, everything was warmer.
He didn’t go back to his cliff. He stayed.
Far away in Sunny Square, the whole woods shouted, “HAPPY NEW YEAR!”
Granny Mabel looked up at the great wings around her home. She looked at Mr. Monkey, curled up next to her, and at Mr. Moose’s sleeping nose, and through the door at Mama and Daddy Moose, waiting in the snow.
“I’m not used to this,” she said softly. “I’m used to the dark. I’m not used to company.”
“You can get used to it,” said Mr. Monkey sleepily.
When the sky turned pink, Mama Moose took out the white stars she had brought in her basket, and Mr. Monkey painted one by the first light of the new year. He left the front of it empty. On the back, he painted a tiny home under a log, and a great eagle with his wings around it.
“What a day!” said Mr. Monkey, yawning, on the walk home through the brambles. “We didn’t go to the party. We stayed with Granny Mabel. Mr. Moose was too big, so only his nose came in, and he drank his teacup, cup and all. Granny Mabel told stories in the dark. Mr. Moose’s snore rattled all the teacups, and he was a snore-nose.
And Everest came all the way down and put his wings around her home, and stayed all night.”
Mr. Monkey whistled, and Mr. Moose hummed, and together they sang:
We are better together,
Moose and Monkey forever.
And behind them, past the bramble patch, in the very first morning of the new year, a great eagle still sat in the snow with his wings folded around the smallest home in the woods, while the sun came up and found him there.