Gayle Boss grew discouraged as she searched for the right Advent calendar for her children. Each one she found seemed to be celebrating the wrong time of year.
“I knew that Advent is a season of waiting in the dark for the birth of the light of the world. All of the calendars I could find for kids were ones with gift packages, candy canes, reindeer, or they had the cast of the Nativity — Mary, Joseph, Wise Men, sheep, shepherds,” she said. “I thought, ‘Those are not Advent calendars. They’re not waiting in the dark, they’re celebrating Christmas during Advent.’ ”
Boss decided she had no choice but to make her own. Years later, the experience inspired her to write “All Creation Waits: The Advent Mystery of New Beginnings,” illustrated by Sharon Spitz. With the help of a red fox stuffed animal named Sylvie, Boss read parts of her animal-filled, Advent-themed book to the students at St. Timothy School in Chantilly Nov. 13.
The first page begins with the painted turtle, the same animal that was behind the first door of the calendar she made for her children. “Animals know how to wait and slow down when the dark season comes,” she said. “It was perfect because (animals) were both an apt symbol for the way creation shows us how to be in Advent, and my kids loved them.”
She told the students that painted turtles don’t breathe all winter long. They learned about little brown bats who sleep huddled together for warmth, and wood frogs who freeze themselves every winter and thaw in the spring. Living next to a nature preserve in Grand Rapids, Mich., Boss was able to observe many of the animals she wrote about. “I still remember watching the skunk pouncing on insects, trying to eat enough in October and build a nest before winter comes,” she said.
For 24 pages, one page for each day of Advent, readers learn about animals such as muskrats, whitetail deer and chickadees, from how they get food to when they give birth. All of them in one way or another slow down, a good reminder during this frenzied time of year, said Boss.
“Animals in winter, in the Northern Hemisphere at least, provide us some really good symbols for what a healthy soul might do when any sort of a harsh season comes on us,” she said.
On the page for Christmas day, children read about baby Jesus, who was born surrounded by animals. But until then, they learn to patiently wait with the woodland creatures for the coming of the light.
Maraist can be reached at [email protected] or X (formerly Twitter) @zoeymaraistACH.
