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Tomorrow is the first Sunday of Advent, and CT’s 2025 devotional Darkness, Then Light is available now on our website. Each year, says its introductory essay, this season reminds us of a “dark but divine truth. … During the dimmest hours of the night, we are moments away from the morning light—a light that never fails to arrive and welcome us into God’s evergreen mercies.”
There are also plenty of Advent reads in our archives to prompt prayer and meditation in the days approaching Christmas. A few staff favorites:
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Our worship correspondent Kelsey Kramer McGinnis is back with her annual roundup of new Christmas albums.
“I’ve heard so many versions of ‘Silent Night’ and ‘Feliz Navidad,’ but musicians are interpreters who can always find something new to say in a song,” she writes. In an age of AI-generated music, “I think I have a new appreciation for that gift this year.”
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Emily Belz, senior staff writer: Storymakers has cool Advent materials for kids, including a play to perform.
Kate Shellnutt, editorial director, news: I like the indie rock covers in the Spotify playlist Holidays Rule, including The Civil Wars singing “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.”
Christmas is full of excitement. Planning meals, wrapping gifts, and gathering with loved ones make the season special. Yet sometimes, even the most joyful traditions can feel overwhelming or exhausting.…
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As we enter the holiday season, we consider how the places to which we belong shape us—and how we can be the face of welcome in a broken world. In this issue, you’ll read about how a monastery on Patmos offers quiet in a world of noise and, from Ann Voskamp, how God’s will is a place to find home. Read about modern missions terminology in our roundtable feature and about an astrophysicist’s thoughts on the Incarnation. Be sure to linger over Andy Olsen’s reported feature “An American Deportation” as we consider Christian responses to immigration policies. May we practice hospitality wherever we find ourselves.
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