Who took the hard path for my sake this year?
It's New Year's Day, the last Celebrate day of Advent Overflow. For three days, everyone has been noticing the people who chose a cost for their good this year. Now the fifth and last candle is lit, everyone reads the gold stars with their name on them beneath the Star of Agape, and the household plans three last days of giving love. Plan on about 40 minutes, plus any meal or extra you add.
Remember: light all five candles, and remember the three As.
Rejoice: the last Opening. Everyone reads the gold stars written to them.
Ready: plan the Time, Resources and Words for January 2 to 4.
The Fifth Candle
Supplies: all five candles in holders (or the tins or battery candles you chose) and a long-neck lighter. No candles at all? The words work on their own.
Instructions:
Today all five candles burn together for the first time. The fifth is for Love, and it's the last new candle of the season.
Read to the kids: Agape is love that does something hard to help someone else. It's what the three As on our star stand for, and today it's the last word of our answer.
Turn the room lights down. A grown-up leads each line, and everyone says it back. On "Grace comes in," relight the four candles from earlier weeks. On "Passed along," tilt the fifth candle's wick into the fourth flame until it catches. 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: Love from our house, love from our friends, love from beyond us.
All: Three As, one star. (Point up at the Star of Agape.)Grown-up: One light.
All: One light.Grown-up: Passed along. (Light the Love candle.)
All: Passed along.Grown-up: What do we pass on?
All: Generosity, hope, peace, joy, and agape.
Agape or love? The three As on the star stand for agape, so that's the word printed here. If your household would rather end with "love," say that instead. Decide together before you start.
Alternative Liturgy: Ancient Light Version
For families who want it, these words can replace the ones above. Relight the four earlier candles without words, then light the Love candle while a grown-up or an older kid reads:
Reader: A short letter, one that people have long said John wrote too, puts love and light side by side: "Anyone who loves their brother and sister lives in the light."
Grown-up: Love from our house, love from our friends, love from beyond us.
All: Three As, one star. One light, passed along.
The Last Opening
Supplies: the gold stars on the tree, and the candles.
Instructions:
On December 29, everyone wrote gold stars to the rest of the house. Each one thanks someone for a time they did something hard, or held something back, to help the person writing. Now everyone gets to read what was written to them.
Gather by the tree, beneath the Star of Agape, with the candles nearby. Each person finds the gold stars with their own name on the front and takes them down. Read them out loud, one at a time, or read them quietly if you'd rather. Someone sits with each child who can't read yet and reads their stars to them.
The red and white stars stay on the tree. The gold ones now belong to whoever's name is on them, so put them somewhere they'll get read again. It's the last Opening of the season, so take your time.
The Plan for January 2 to 4
Supplies: paper or a sticky note, and a pen.
Instructions:
Now the household plans the last three days of the season, when it gives love away one currency at a time. A grown-up says the commissioning line:
Grown-up: You are invited to participate in the Agape Adventure.
For kids, it means three days of doing something hard to help someone else, the same kind of love the three As on the star stand for.
Then write three lines together:
Time (January 2): What job that nobody wants could you do for someone?
Resources (January 3): Who could get your best, not your leftovers? It can be money, or something you own or buy.
Words (January 4): Who needs a Love Letter from you? That's the last day of Advent Overflow.
Each person can make their own three lines, or the household can share one set. A plan only has to be good enough to follow. Put it where everyone will see it in the morning.
Suggested organizations. If your Resources gift goes to an organization, each of these gives to people who can't pay it back:
Meals on Wheels America (mealsonwheelsamerica.org): about 5,000 local programs bring meals, a friendly visit, and a safety check to older neighbors. Enter your ZIP code on its site to find and give to the one in your town.
Feeding America (feedingamerica.org): a nationwide network of food banks that gets groceries to families who don't have enough to eat.
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital (stjude.org): treats children with cancer and other serious diseases, and families never receive a bill from St. Jude for treatment, travel, housing, or food.
Optional. Add one if your household wants more today, or skip them both.
Basil's Bread. Serve any bread with the day's meal: a loaf you bake, a store-bought loaf, rolls, or a sweet bread from a bakery. Before anyone eats, read this story out loud:
More than 1,600 years ago, a man named Basil lived in a city called Caesarea (sess-uh-REE-uh), in the land we now call Turkey. He was a leader among the people who followed Jesus there. One year there wasn't enough food, and many people went hungry, so Basil sold some of what he owned to buy food for them. Later he built a big place where poor people, sick people, and travelers could get a bed, a meal, and care. He even took in people with a sickness that made everyone else stay away. Basil died on January 1, and in Greece the day is still kept in his memory. Many families there bake a New Year's bread called vasilopita (vah-see-LOH-pee-tah), which many people say means "Basil's bread." Our bread today helps us remember the love he showed.
Then pass the bread around so everyone gets a piece. Didn't plan ahead? Any bread in the house works, even toast.
The Name Draw. Write each person's name on a slip of paper, fold the slips, and put them in a bowl. Everyone draws one and keeps it secret. (Draw your own name? Put it back and draw again.) From January 2 to 4, love the person you drew in secret: make their bed, leave a drawing on their pillow, do one of their chores, or save them the best seat. At dinner on January 4, everyone guesses who had them, and then the secrets come out. If you like, the person you drew can get your Love Letter that day too. A grown-up can help a little one keep the secret and think of ideas. It works best with three or more people.
Kids' story: read "The Last Light" together, from The Overflow Adventure in Wanderful Woods.
Time: about 40 minutes: 5 for the candles, 15 to 20 for the Opening, and 10 to 15 for the Plan. An extra adds to that.
When: New Year's Day often has its own plans. Hold the celebration whenever the household is home together, even if that's the morning.
Short on time? Light the candles, read the stars, and write only tomorrow's Time line. The rest can be planned in the morning.
Leading the words: an older kid can lead the Grown-up lines. On the last candle night, that can be a good way to hand the season on.
For the grown-ups: Martin Luther King Jr., the civil rights leader and pastor, described agape this way in "Loving Your Enemies," a 1961 sermon: "Agape is more than romantic love. Agape is more than friendship. Agape is understanding, redemptive goodwill for all men. Agape is an overflowing love, a spontaneous love, which seeks nothing in return. And theologians would say that it is the love of God operating in the human heart."
Hello, my wonderful story friends! Last time, Mr. Moose and Mr. Monkey missed the Last Night Party to stay with Granny Mabel in the dark, and at midnight, Everest came all the way down from his cliff and wrapped his wings around her tiny home. Now it’s the first day of a brand-new year, and a fifth candle is waiting.
Have you ever passed something along, from one friend to the next to the next? Let’s go see where the light goes.
The first morning of the new year was so still and clear that you could hear a pinecone drop all the way across Sunny Square, tup. The sky was pale gold. The snow was pink where the sun touched it. And the air smelled like woodsmoke and pine.
Everybody gathered at the little green pine by the Moose home’s door, under the big gold star at the very top. All around the star hung the little stars, gold and red and white, with their painted sides turned to the trunk.
“It’s time,” said Mama Moose. “Find the gold ones with your own face on them.”
Daddy Moose found his. On the front, he was carrying a log on each shoulder. He turned it over, and there he was again, going out into the storm, first, before anybody else had to. He read it for a long time. Then his ears turned pink, all the way to the tips.
“Daddy,” said Mr. Moose. “Your ears are pink.”
“It’s cold,” said Daddy Moose. But it wasn’t that cold.
“Ha-ha-ha!” laughed Mr. Moose, and Daddy Moose’s ears went even pinker.
Mama Monkey found hers. On the back were three long nights, and a mama monkey singing, with very, very big ears. She held it up next to her own head.
“Do my ears really look like THAT?” she asked.
“Only when you’re listening,” said Mr. Monkey. “Hee hee hee!”
And Bruno found a red star with his own big face on it. When he turned it over and saw two big paws holding back the brambles, he held it so gently, with just two claws, that it hardly moved.
Then everybody went to the fire in Sunny Square. On the flat stone, the four candles were burning in a row. Next to them stood a fifth one, the last one, waiting.
Mama Monkey held out the twig. “The first light was for the light we got, given away,” she said. “The second was for the light that keeps us walking. The third was for the light that holds steady. The fourth was for the light at the end of the wait.” She smiled. “And this one is for the light that overflows.”
Mr. Moose took the twig and touched it to the fourth candle, and Mr. Monkey helped him carry the little flame over. Together they lit the fifth candle.
Five lights, in a row. It was the brightest the flat stone had ever been, so bright that the snow all around it glowed.
But Mr. Monkey looked past the candles, past the trees, toward the far edge of the woods. And he felt it, all at once.
“Mr. Moose,” he said. “Granny Mabel’s home is still dark. It’s the only one. It’s the last one.”
Mr. Moose looked at the fifth candle. Granny Mabel couldn’t come to the light. Her leg didn’t work well enough to walk that far. So the light would have to go to her. But last time, their lantern had bounced off the sled and gone out. They needed a way that wouldn’t let the light go out, all the way through the woods and the brambles.
He looked at all the friends standing around the fire. Bruno and Hazel and Dottie. Benji and Shiloh and Ricky and Percy. All the mamas and daddies. The old crow and his son and the three grandchicks. Tessie. Orion, blinking, who had stayed up past his bedtime to come. Everybody.
“What if everybody carries one?” said Mr. Moose slowly. “And everybody lights theirs from the one before. Then if one goes out, there’s always another one right there.”
Everybody got a candle. Mr. Moose lit his from the fifth candle. Mr. Monkey lit his from Mr. Moose’s. Benji lit his from Mr. Monkey’s. Shiloh lit his from Benji’s. And on and on, candle to candle, friend to friend, until everybody in Sunny Square was holding a little light.
Then Bruno sneezed. HAAA… HAAA… HAAA-SHNOOOOF! And his candle went out, pfft.
Bruno looked at his candle. “Oops.”
Hazel held hers out, and Bruno lit his again from it.
“Haw haw haw!” went Bruno. “That’s why everybody has one!”
Then, with Mr. Moose and Mr. Monkey at the front, the whole woods walked out of Sunny Square in one long line. Past the Wishing Tree. Across the meadow. Through the deep snow. One little light after another, all in a row, like a string of stars that somebody had laid down across the woods.
Sammy zipped up and down the whole line, over and over, because the line was so long and Sammy was so fast.
Every time she zipped past, every little flame in the line leaned over after her, whoosh, one after another, as if they were all trying to see where she went.
“Hee hee hee!” went Mr. Monkey. “The candles are waving at Sammy!”
The line was so long that when Mr. Moose and Mr. Monkey reached the meadow, Tessie, at the very back, was still leaving Sunny Square.
Benji ran all the way back to walk with her, and then all the way to the front to tell Mr. Monkey she was coming, and then all the way back again, and by the end of it, Benji had walked the whole line three times.
“Hee hee,” went Benji, all out of breath. “Tessie says… she’s coming… slowly.”
They came to the bramble patch. The path Bruno had made was still there, and Hazel’s stamped-down snow. And one by one, the whole woods walked through it, in a long line of lights.
Granny Mabel’s home was dark, just like before. Mr. Monkey knocked on the tiny door. Tap, tap, tap.
The door opened, and Granny Mabel looked out. And there, in front of her, stretching all the way back through the brambles and across the snow and as far as she could see, was the whole woods, every single one of them, holding a little light.
Granny Mabel put her tiny paw over her mouth. She didn’t say anything at all. She tried to count the lights, and she lost count at a hundred and three.
Mr. Moose and Mr. Monkey held out their two candles, and Granny Mabel held out a tiny old candle stub of her own. She had kept it a long, long time, with no way to light it. They touched their flames to it together.
It caught. And Granny Mabel carried it inside, slowly, leaning on her little stick, and set it in her tiny window.
For the first time in a long, long time, Granny Mabel’s home glowed.
“It’s the last one,” whispered Mr. Monkey. “Every home in the whole woods is lit now.”
Granny Mabel looked at all of them through her tiny window. And her face, in the candlelight, was the happiest face in the woods.
Everest Eagle came gliding down from his cliff and landed on the log right over her roof. He looked at the little light in the window. He looked at the long line of lights in the snow. And slowly, he tipped one great wing toward her, the way an eagle bows.
That night, from the top of the hill, you could see the whole of Wanderful Woods, and every home in it was glowing. Not one dark home was left. The whole woods glowed.
“What a day!” said Mr. Moose, walking home with Mr. Monkey in the long line of lights. “We read the gold stars, and Daddy’s ears turned pink. Mama Monkey asked if her ears were really that big. We lit the fifth candle. Then everybody lit a candle from somebody else’s. Bruno sneezed his out, so he lit it again from Hazel’s. The candles waved at Sammy.
And we lit Granny Mabel’s candle, and now every home in the woods is lit.”
Mr. Monkey whistled, and Mr. Moose hummed, and together they sang:
We are better together,
Moose and Monkey forever.
And far past the bramble patch, in the smallest home in Wanderful Woods, a tiny candle burned in a tiny window, the last light of all, glowing out into the snow.