Hello hello! I hope you ate less at Thanksgiving than Trevor, and that you did not use rotten milk in your rolls like me. Eh well.
This will be the final Paradox Paper of 2023. Iβll be back in your inbox the last Friday in January 2024. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Welcome to The Paradox Paper, a monthly newsletter that honors the everyday paradox of a life with Jesus. If a friend forwarded you this email, click here to subscribe:
In this edition:
My favorite Christmas album
A holiday punch that is delicious with or without alcohol
A guide for grieving through the holidays
A prayer to Emmanuel, God with us
Behold, The Lamb of God
Christmas music is magical. I love all the classics. But this album is my absolute favorite. Jesusβ birth only matters because of what came before, and what has and will come after, and nobody can put a story to music like Andrew Peterson. He retells the stories we know in an order and style that renews my hope and anticipation. If I want a thrill and a good cry I will sit alone with just the Christmas lights on and listen to this album start to finish. If you havenβt heard it before, this is the very best way to enjoy it.
Holiday Punch
Thanks to @bartendermd on TikTok for this delicious recipe. I took both boozy and non boozy versions to our thanksgiving meal with friends, and it was a hit. Iβll be remaking at Christmas for sure.
One batch serves eight punch-size cups, ish:
2 cups vodka*
2 cups cranberry juice cocktail
1 cup pulp-free orange juice
12 oz ginger beer (I like the Fever Tree brand)
1/2 cup cinnamon syrup**
Rosemary/cranberries for garnish
*For booze free, skip the vodka and double up the ginger beer
**Boil 1 cup of sugar in 1 cup of water until dissolved, and soak four cinnamon sticks in the mixture while it cools
Itβs the most wonderful time of the year. Which makes it extra awful if youβre not having a wonderful time.
I hope you are having THE holiday season of your LIFE. I hope every meal comes out exactly as you planned and every politically opposed relative is on their best behavior and every child stays well. I hope you get exactly the gifts you hoped for and everyone loves the gifts you buy for them.
But if none of that happensβor all of it does, but the grief runs deeperβwhat then? Itβs been a few years since Iβve shared the Holiday Grief Guide, and I think itβs time. I wrote it with my brotherβs loss top of mind, but people arenβt the only things we lose, and death isnβt the only way we lose. However youβre grieving, I am deeply sorry, and I hope this will make the weight of that grief just a little lighter.
Hold the paradox. Donβt panic.
-Steph
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