“At times life is pure
joy!” is what’s written on one of the mugs at my mom’s house with a drawing of
Snoopy and Woodstock dancing on the front. When I was
a baby, my Godmother Marcy decided I looked a bit like Snoopy’s fine feathered sidekick,
Woodstock, because my hair would stick straight up, so that was one of my
nicknames back then. We had some really
fun times as kids. When I think of pure, unbridled joy, I often think of children at play, singing, dancing, running, laughing, exploring nature…
Being around children has helped me learn to rejoice and be glad in a variety of circumstances. They’re enthralled by so many different things that we just take for granted, never notice, or find to be rather dull. They take great delight in hearing their favorite story books read to them over and over and over again. Peek-a-boo and hide-and-seek are occasions for great bouts of giggling.
I can still picture my sister Theresa having a ball with some of the paper strips that had been used as cushioning around a Christmas gift. As a baby she’d wave the paper around wildly with a huge smile on her face. I imagine I had the same sort of jubilation when I discovered that in the bottom drawer of my nursery, my mom kept wrapping paper. My inclination to dip into that drawer for amusement earned me another nickname: “the paper monster.
What brought you joy as a child? How can you share that fun with the children in your life now? What could you do to bring someone else joy this Advent season?
