Military Wellness Collective

EP 14: Passing Down Faith Through Portable Holiday Traditions

• Military Wellness Collective

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The holidays can form a family or fracture one. In this episode Brian and Kelly O’Day and Joshua and Brittany Brown unpack how to build Christ-centered traditions that actually move with you—through military life, new cities, and shifting seasons—without losing the heart of the story.

We start with Deuteronomy 6 and treat traditions as discipling tools: daily, ordinary moments that teach love for God while you sit, walk, and rise. You’ll hear practical rhythms like an Advent “doors” countdown with Scripture on December 1, simple generosity challenges (yes, even paying for a stranger’s gas), and why a candle at dinner paired with a short reading can reset a rushed day. We dig into the real tension of merging two upbringings, what to keep, what to release, and how to create new rituals that fit your values now.

Hospitality takes center stage as we draw a line between entertaining and welcoming. Forget perfection; embrace participation. Potlucks, plastic plates, and shared cleanup invite neighbors, single service members, and friends who can’t travel into a living tradition. We also make the case for experiences over more stuff: use your budget for memory-making—local parades, light displays, concerts, or a quiet drive with carols—and capture the car-ride conversations that kids remember for years.

If devotionals help you focus, we mention Advent resources from She Reads Truth, He Reads Truth, John Piper, Nancy Guthrie, and Paul Tripp; if not, reading Luke 2 and the Gospels works beautifully. The thread tying it all together is simple: choose practices that are portable, purposeful, and centered on Jesus. Subscribe, share this with a friend who’s far from home, and tell us one tradition you’ll start or revive this year. Your next tradition can begin tonight.

SHOW NOTES:

She Reads Truth: Advent 2025 | Women's Daily Bible Reading Plan – She Reads Truth

He Reads Truth: Advent 2025 | Men's Bible Reading Plan (DIGITAL) – She Reads Truth

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SPEAKER_01:

And welcome back, everybody, to another episode. We're diving in today to cultivating holiday traditions that are transient with you. I'm going to be diving into that this uh this wonderful day. I am joined with Brian and Kelly O'Day. All right, guys. Hi. And my wonderful wife, Brittany.

SPEAKER_02:

Hey.

SPEAKER_01:

And I'm Joshua, and we're gonna be walking through this today, and it's gonna be a good time. But let's start with a really good text to dive into. Brian, would you mind reading Deuteronomy six for us?

SPEAKER_00:

Deuteronomy six. I'll start in verse four. Here, this is the ESV. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise, you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. And so as we think about traditions, like we are trying to pass down specifically the faith. Now, there's lots of traditions that we can pass down to our kids. I like the NC State Wolfpack, right? And so I've passed that tradition of watching NC State football with my kids, but that's not really what we're talking about today. We're talking about passing down the traditions of the faith, the commandments of the Lord, and instilling those into our kids. And the hol this time of year, we call it around here Marine Corps Ramadan because like the Marine Corps just has lots of long weekends in November and December. And, you know, so there's lots of holidays. Thanksgiving and Christmas are coming up, New Year's is coming up, all those things. And so we want to think well about how we try translate that into the next generation.

SPEAKER_04:

That's really good.

SPEAKER_01:

I think we may have just lost some listeners because of your NC State comment, by the way.

SPEAKER_02:

No, no.

SPEAKER_01:

Man, some people take a look at the city.

SPEAKER_00:

Nobody hates football. Nobody hates NC State, though. There's other schools that people hate. I don't know that anybody hates NC State.

SPEAKER_03:

People forget about NC State. That's okay if we don't.

SPEAKER_00:

Or maybe I just ignore all those people.

SPEAKER_01:

There are people that are so particular about their team that all other teams, no matter what they are, if you're not on board with them, they're out of here. Yeah. You know what I mean? So if you're that person, like stay with us. That's okay.

SPEAKER_03:

So one thing I was gonna say about traditions is I think a lot of times we want to it to look like maybe it did growing up. If it my family had great traditions that I wanted to keep doing, and when we first got married, it was kind of like a not a tug of war, but just like, well, my family did this. I did and one beautiful thing is like we have to create new traditions together, bringing our kids up and something that we create maybe doesn't look just like it did. I mean, we can take some things that we used growing up, but even create new ones too. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

So what were some traditions that you guys grew up with that you ended up keeping in your home? And what were some that you decided to make some new ones about?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, one thing we do, especially we we're both kind of from the East Coast, and we have spent most of our time in the military on the East Coast. So when we've been able to, we still go and visit our families dur around the holidays, during the holidays. Even when we were in Oklahoma, we would make the trips sometime during the holiday season to to still engage with the traditions of our families. Yeah, so we're still tied into what they're doing.

SPEAKER_04:

For sure. Yeah, that's I think for us, we did that for a long time. We would go back to where our family was. But then we began to create new traditions that were more centered on Christ. Because obviously, if any of you have not listened to our testimonies, I highly recommend going back and listening to that episode. It's like back in the first five somewhere. Somewhere. Yeah, back down there. We're not that far in yet, so you can find it easily. And so we decided there were some things that we wanted to be different and make it similar to what Deuteronomy 6 was saying, you know, find those things in their heart and that the traditions we grew up with, not that all of them were bad, but we wanted it to be more centered on Christ than what we grew up with.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and that's the big thing. So Kelly and I both grew up in Christian families. We're still very close with our families, and the two big things are getting family together to include extended family, cousins and aunts and uncles, getting together to eat food and spend time with one another. And then also, I would say somewhat awkwardly, bringing in the Christian faith and praying, bringing in things. So, like my my dad would, before we open presents on Christmas morning, he would he would read some passage from the Christmas story from the Bible. And I remember as a kid, that was always like, Dad, come on, man. Like we get it.

SPEAKER_02:

We're so excited.

SPEAKER_00:

We go to church every, like we get that that's what's really going on here. Can we skip over this and get to the presents? We do similarly. We have this tradition we do with the kids from December 1st through December 24th, where we have this little like house. And I don't remember. Do you remember when you bought that?

SPEAKER_03:

I think our first Christmas with kids.

SPEAKER_00:

Really? Yeah. Wow.

SPEAKER_03:

I had been dreaming up this idea.

SPEAKER_00:

Tell us for a while. I I have no clue what this is.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, I mean, I just wanted to start. Explain it.

SPEAKER_00:

So there's this little wooden house that sits on our kitchen counter, and it has little tiny, 24 little tiny doors. Actually, 25 little tiny doors, and you can put like a folded up piece of paper in there or a treat or whatever the change is.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, it's really small.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

But I I wanted some kind of significant, I guess, like uh countdown to Christmas where we would do intentional things as a family. And I mean, it looks different depending on what we have going on in our schedule, but the first day, the the door with the one on it is always read the Christmas story. So our kids always know December 1st. That's how we're I mean, and it's a great way to start reading that from the Bible.

SPEAKER_00:

And it's always this like eye roll moment, kind of like how it was with me waking up on Sunday morning where the kids are like, Well, you know what? December 1st is mom's gonna make hot chocolate and we're gonna read the Christmas story.

SPEAKER_03:

And have our little little people nativity scene. They when they were younger, they would you know, act that out with it. But the other ones are usually a surprise to them, and we have just different activities. I mean, there's times where we say write a note of encouragement to someone else. One year we went to the gas station and we paid for other people's gas. That was fun. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

We'll rap or and we would like for the gas thing, we would have the kid, like they were I don't even know how old, like we were right there. Older elementary 20 feet away. Yeah. But we would have them like, hey, do you want to go offer to pay gas to this complete stranger? And that was that was fun. It was that's not something our parents.

SPEAKER_03:

The kids are really excited about once we did it once, and then they all got their turn. It was cool.

SPEAKER_04:

One thing I love about that is all of those things you just mentioned, you could do them wherever you're at. Like we've done that something similar to the gas with our kids, and we started doing it early on in our marriage, like set aside a certain amount of money and then give it to either the kids or somebody.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

Well, when we were really married and we didn't have the kids, actually, I don't know that you were there, so it must have been when we had the kids, once they were old enough. Like, and that we would have them purchase things for other people and then give it to them. And that was always fun. I just think when we're talking about traditions, I I'm a definition nerd, and tradition is just a long-established customer belief that's been passed on from one generation to another. So like you guys hearing you talk about things that you wanted to do from your family of origin because it was special to you, like how you kept some of them, but then how you changed some of them is really cool because it's just things we're passing down. So, like, even gas, when you're talking about paying for somebody's gas, you're teaching your children to be generous. That's the point of the tradition, not the paying for the people's gas or the little house. It's the point of focusing on what we're actually celebrating. So I think it's important to remember as we're building out traditions, it's not just for tradition's sake. Like traditions have meaning and purpose. They should be intentional. Sorry, were you gonna say something, babe?

SPEAKER_01:

No, yeah, no, it was great. But I wanted to go back to the the importance of making them transient. Yeah, being able to have traditions that you could do year after year, regardless of where you are or what where you're at. So for for us, reading Luke 2 was always a tradition. That was something that we brought in when we were newly married, newly saved. We started doing that every year. One thing though that Brittany's she took from her family that she's then passed on from your grandma, right?

SPEAKER_04:

Are you checking out the Italian oh pajamas? Well, now it's trendy and everybody does that. But we were doing that when we were little. I thought you were talking about Italian Christmas. Never mind.

SPEAKER_01:

So she'll get pajamas for the whole family, and then Christmas Eve, everybody will get to open one gift. And guess which gift they they get to open.

SPEAKER_03:

I had to guess, huh?

SPEAKER_01:

Oh man. And I think sometimes the kids, even though they're like adults now, will still be play along and be like, I wonder what this is gonna be. That's funny.

SPEAKER_04:

It was fun too, bringing our son-in-law in. He wasn't our son-in-law yet, but they had just been engaged last Christmas and he gets some pajamas.

SPEAKER_03:

And it was like, you're part of the family.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, like you're in now, dude.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, that's the other thing about traditions, is it's this like marker of bringing people into the family. We had that. We adopted uh one of our kids that we adopted was a teenager when we adopted her and brought her into the family, and we're folding her into those traditions. And the other thing we do, just this transient nature, is we try to fold other people in as we've become more established as a family, as we have kids and now we've got even grandkids. I know that just made us old, but that's okay. But as we do that, we can bring other people in. So bring other couples who are in the area and can't leave the area and go visit home. Bring in those guys who are in the barracks and they can't go home for whatever reason because they have duty or whatever. Like bring them into Thanksgiving dinner, bring them into Christmas traditions, those types of things. And it's just how can we fold people in that might not be part of our explicit family, but fold them into our traditions as well?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, something that do you want to go okay? Something that the church Josh and I got saved at did really well around the holidays was that fold people in. And something that we took from that church for Thanksgiving and now do every year, was they would somebody would open up their home or the church building would be open, and all the women would cook and they would bring it, and all the single Marines, the young families who weren't going home would come, and we would all eat together and just have a great time. And back then we still had paper ads, and so the women would sit and circle that we're all gonna go Black Friday shopping together. Uh-huh. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

I was like, what are we talking about? Like, and like exactly what she was talking about.

SPEAKER_03:

Thanksgiving. Yes, that's what you're saying. Thanksgiving.

SPEAKER_04:

And so we would eat all this food, and afterwards. Yeah, after we ate, the guys, well, everybody who wanted to play, we had a church that was very heavily split down the middle Navy and Marine Corps. So they would play a football game, Navy's versus Marines.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, that's cool.

SPEAKER_04:

And that was fun. So we didn't carry that as much, but the dinner we've carried, and we've had upwards to 38 people in our house. Like, who knows? So that's something you could take with you, bringing other people in to it. And your neighbors who don't know Jesus are very willing to come eat with you, and they just see the community being the community.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So like Kelly and I both grew up in pretty big families, especially when you talk about extended family and getting a bunch of people in a house for Thanksgiving. So that was normal to us. We appreciate that that's not normal for everybody. And so we, yeah, I don't know exactly who's coming to our house for this coming Thanksgiving, but it usually we just start telling people, hey, we're doing Thanksgiving. Hey, if you're not able to go to family, we're doing Thanksgiving. And usually the numbers between 20 and 30 people at our house.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. And I will say, growing up in a big family, like I never did anything. I just showed up to all of those. So then hosting, it was like very intimidating. But what's cool is when you invite people, they're ready to make their favorite dish from so it just kind of like comes together. And this is true for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Yeah. When we've had people over. Like the first few times I felt very intimidated by it and nervous, I guess, hosting it. But now it's one of my favorite things that we do just because it's not as scary as it seems.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, we're we're always wigging out Brittany and I about are we gonna have enough food? Are we gonna have enough food? And there's usually piles so much leftovers. It's like, oh man, what were we thinking? We do this every single year.

SPEAKER_04:

Something that set me free from that thinking too, that stress of like the hosting was an older woman who called me out and told me, Brittany, entertainment and hospitality are two different things. Are you trying to be hospitable or are you trying to just entertain these people? And so for the first few years when we did have people in our home, I was probably trying to entertain more than I needed to. And now it's a free-for-all. It's not anything special. It's like plastic tablecloths and plastic silverware, you know. Just it's the getting the people together that I had to learn was the most important part. I just throw that out there in case any of you women are thinking you have to put on elaborate, oh, yeah, beautiful synthesis.

SPEAKER_01:

Can I ask a question there? Because I think that's an important little rabbit trail to go down.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

What is the difference between entertaining and being just hospitable and being open? Because I want to open that up a little bit because we're having a lot of family gatherings over the holidays. Yes.

SPEAKER_00:

So a lot of people are going to be able to do that. Entertaining like everything has to be perfect and people are showing up, expecting that you, the host or hostess, is doing everything for them. Right. When I go to a show and I'm going to be entertained, my job is to show up and sit there and receive. Whereas when you're hosting, you're bringing people into the life of the of the events, bringing people into the life of the meal. And so they're showing up and they, as Kelly said, they brought their favorite thing. They brought their dish that they, you know, I I don't want to make a whole meal, but man, I really want to make my grandmother's sweet potato casserole or whatever the case is. And so that gives, but they're in everything doesn't have to be perfect. You're expecting them to fold into what's happening.

SPEAKER_04:

That's good.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

And hospitality is you like being able to enjoy the evening too. You're not just running around serving everybody, like checklist. Yeah. You people are helping you do the dishes if need be. You're okay with that. Or you're loving people, and it's not about what you want to look like as the hostess. It's about the people, not about you. And that's a big difference.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So I think there's a for me, one of the big like hurdles I had to get over was we're adults now. And so when we do this, like Kelly's like, yeah, we're hosting Thanksgiving. Actually, our first Thanksgiving, I remember us being together, was we were gonna make the turkey for this, I think it was actually a like a shelter for kids who are in foster care. And so we were we were doing that, and I was making the turkey.

SPEAKER_03:

You had never made a turkey.

SPEAKER_00:

And I'd never made a turkey before. So maybe not the first time to go make a turkey, but like at some point, you have to be like, oh, I know somebody else was always the one that made the turkey, or somebody else was always the one who did this, that, or the other. Like, now's the time to jump in. Jump in, figure it out. I think so often in some of these traditions when we're not able to go back to family, or maybe our family of origin isn't what we wished it would have been, then you know, there's this temptation to always think about what we're missing out on. Yes. Instead of embracing where you are, embracing where God has placed you and dive in and do some adulting.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, man.

SPEAKER_01:

That's that's powerful. Yeah, one of the things going back to like the purpose of the traditions that we have, I I just am thinking back to like my childhood and some of the some other people that have spoken out about how they've grown up and what like Christmas and Thanksgiving has become. And some of the things that really stand out to me is like the commercialization of it. And a lot of kids are just like all about getting a gift or a toy and a a thing. And and I'm looking back on my own childhood and thinking, I don't remember 99% of the gifts that I would receive. Right. I don't remember 99% of the little things that I had. And quite honestly, from what my parents told me, I played with the toy for maybe a day or two after that and ended up in a closet somewhere. And so, like those traditions of giving gifts, even, we can put a little more thought into them and make them more memorable and purposeful throughout the year. And I'm thinking about what what we do typically as a family is in instead of giving larger gifts or certain gifts like that, we will think about what we're gonna do with our finances and look at a trip we can take as a family or something we can do together to really show, like, hey, this is a time for a family to come together and love one another well and do things together that that are meaningful. And I I I think as my kids have grown up and we've been talking to them as they've become adults, that's been impactful on them. But quite honestly, I don't it's it's sometimes hard to know for sure with your own kids.

SPEAKER_03:

Those are the things I remember though. The excuse the people that I was with, yeah, the experiences that we had and not the gifts, you're right.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Not the things.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, more and more. I don't remember when we started making this shift, but more and more our gifts will be experiences, like, hey, we're gonna go do this thing together. We're more apt to use our Christmas budget in doing things collectively as a family and going to events together than we are to uh buy one more gift for the kids or whatever the case is.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah. Yeah, I love that because when you talk about it being transient, like you can look in wherever you're look wherever you're stationed in your local community and see what they have going on. Like, do they have local theater that has a Christmas play? Do they have a good ballet that has the nutcracker? Like here in North Carolina, east Eastern North Carolina is a really cool nutcracker show where they bring in some of the history of North Carolina that's different than other places. You know, Christmas lights places you can go farm.

SPEAKER_00:

We like to go to our local Christmas parade on a regular basis. They do one here. We all we almost always miss it. We've been once or twice, but there's like a floating Christmas parade because we're near the water, like a flotilla where people have Christmas lights on their boats and those types of things. So, yeah, find out what's happening in the local area, bring that. And and those together times create those spaces and opportunities to bring in this Deuteronomy 6 as you sit, as you stand, as you walk by the way. There's going to be so many opportunities when you're when you're listening to Christmas music on your way to the flotilla thing. When you're listening to that, like use those opportunities, take those opportunities to weave in who Jesus is, why God encourages us and teaches us to be thankful, whatever the holidays and the opportunities are, take those opportunities to to talk about Jesus, to talk about God, to talk about the the real reason behind what sometimes can get lost in all the noise.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. And you saying getting lost in all the noise really made me think back to when we were earlier on in our marriage, we were always taking the holiday time to try to get back to wherever our home of record is, right? Try to get back and see as much family as possible. And we're running from like family event to family event, you know, cousin to an aunt and uncle to a mom and dad on both sides. Like it's just crazy. By the time you're done with your vacation, you're ready for a vacation, that kind of a thing. But one thing that was really helpful for us is when we started kind of breaking it up and going, okay, we're gonna actually just stay home wherever we're stationed.

SPEAKER_02:

Right.

SPEAKER_01:

And because that is home. We say often, especially in the military, as you're moving around, oh, I'm going back home for a period of time. But if you really see wherever you're at as your home, you can do the holidays wherever you're at. And if you're a family out there listening that has their son or daughter that's off with in whatever military base, you can also go to them, take a break from whatever tradition that you have at your house and go and see your your kid or family member and and experience some of those traditions that they've made along the way while they're in this transient lifestyle.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, I think it's okay to remember that this is okay for trend traditions to change. Like I loved listening to Brian talk about some of the like the flotillas and the parades and stuff because what I'm hearing is the tradition itself is actually the being together and just celebrating the holiday. If that is a norm in your family, like no matter where you're at, they're just gonna expect that you're gonna do some of these things that you do together, but it's gonna look different. And Joshua and I both grew up in divorced homes. And so traditions were consistently changing, or maybe there was anything solidified. There were certain things, but I think the transient lifestyle we we probably have more traditions in the military context than we did, you know, in a home that was stable. So I just want to encourage you guys, like you can let go of some of those things, make new traditions, or a tradition might die off, and it doesn't mean you failed. Like you just skip a couple years, found something.

SPEAKER_03:

Like our Thanksgiving pumpkin. Yeah. We didn't do it this year.

SPEAKER_04:

We didn't do it this year either. Yeah. I don't know. We always not always, we're not consistent enough. We used to take the month of December and we would take a calendar out and put what Christmas movie we were gonna watch that night.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

We did that a few years in a row, but it got a lot because by the time we got to like December 15th, we're like, we're tired of watching babies every night.

SPEAKER_00:

Um but it's fun to like plan that out or something. Yeah, we have fun planning the doors because sometimes it's a Christmas movie, sometimes it's an activity. We go to a Christmas concert or Christmas play, like Nutcracker or something like you're talking about. And it's fun to plan that out. Kelly and I will plan that out, and then the kids, it's a surprise. Our older kids that once they start working, we have to start giving them like, hey, you'll definitely want to take off this night because we're doing something, you know. So sometimes we have to do that. But for the younger kids, like it's a surprise. Like, what are we doing? And uh yeah, planning that stuff outs well. And and I think that's part of why we're having this conversation in November is so that, hey, you've got some time, put some thought to this as you're thinking through your traditions. How can we build some more together time in? How can we say no to some things that maybe we don't we don't need to do and don't really align with what we're trying to do as a family? And how can we constantly point one another back to Christ? How can we constantly point one another back to thanking the Lord for the good things that we have? And how can we fold other people into what we're doing? Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's good.

SPEAKER_01:

I have one more thing and then we'll have to wrap it up here, guys. But as as we lead up to this season and obviously ending with like Christmas time and rejoicing in the coming Savior, during this time of year, is there anything you guys do that like is a progressive thing? Maybe some readings or like some what's that?

SPEAKER_04:

They do the doors.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, they do the doors, yes, but like I'm talking about biblical, maybe scriptural readings or some sort of things that kind of build on each other that walk through some different weeks before you get to to this time frame.

SPEAKER_04:

I feel like I know what you're getting at. So I'll just answer for us. Like we always do an advent uh reading journey. We've used several different books through the years, from John Piper to Nancy Guthrie to Paul Trip, a lot of different ones where it's just a daily reading and we would read it after dinner. We have a tradition in our home at dinner time where there's a candle on the table and we light it and everyone says Christ is light after, and then we pray and we eat. So it goes along with that. We do the advent reading there. So you can look for advent readings building up to Christmas or something like that.

SPEAKER_03:

I love that. Yes, I have personally done a study, but I do like the idea of just like as a family. I don't know that we've ever really done that, but this year we're gonna do She Reads Truth and the John Deimber one. And he reads truth. And he reads truth, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

I don't I don't like devotionals generally speaking. Just give me the Bible and a journal, and we'll go from there. So I I usually don't, however, advent season, you know, they get marketed a little extra, but also some of them are really good. So I've done a I've done a paper one in the past. I think I did a He Reads Truth one in the past. We just got them to do this year, Kelly and I to do the same one, like uh uh that are going side by side with each other. And so this is a good time of year to break up maybe some of the day-to-day, week-to-week Bible reading type of thing. To me, this is like the time of year I give myself permission to do that. The other thing I will do if I'm just sticking like strict Bible, is to read, read gospels, read Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. Just read them all the way through. And when you get to the end of one, read another one. Just it's just great to think about the life of Jesus and what he has meant to that he has incarnated, he has come and dwelled among us, and we have seen his glory.

SPEAKER_03:

And there's so many good rich hymns or you know, Christmas songs that let's have a whole episode on Christmas songs. That we we did like one year we would after dinner, I think we were going through the gospels and we would sing Christmas songs and yeah, the kids just seeing the words and singing the words, I think are it's just there's such rich lyrics in a lot of those, you know.

SPEAKER_04:

I love that. I love if anybody out here has not checked out She Reads Truth and He Reads Truth, their advent studies we have used those for years.

SPEAKER_03:

This is my first year doing it, so I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_04:

I I think it really grounds you into the season and it calls you to enter it intentionally. And I think that's why I love Advent studies that beckon us to see the truth of what the season is about. And it's a grounding to not get caught up in the materialism and consumeristic mindset of the of the world we live in. And as our kids have gotten older, as they have been teenagers, Titus has done he reads truth, and the girls have done she reads truth alongside of us, and then we could talk about that too. Like what's God showing you through this study? You know? So I'm excited that you all are gonna be talking about it's amazing. Daily Grace Company has solid ones too.

SPEAKER_00:

You can join us.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, true.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, the advent season is a really good time to really have some reminders already put on your calendar to remind us of the reason for the season. Man, how cheesy is that. We almost made it. But seriously, it is it is a time when if you put those on the calendar, if you have them before you, if you're reading about what it's about, you can really avoid some of those consumeristic, some of those like, oh, I'm busy to be busy because it's a busy season in this busy holiday season, and then it just you blink and it's gone. And we really need to focus, slow down, and just really understand that this is this is about celebrating a relationship with Christ and Him coming, not about all this other stuff that happens. So let's make the stuff that we do actually end up doing in our lives focus on that, slow down, and man, it is a good and wonderful time. Well, I think that's our time, guys. I appreciate y'all being with us and pray that y'all have a blessed holiday season.