I love this time of year. It doesn't matter how busy or how exhausted our season of life is, I still really enjoy advent and the holiday season in general. I have been blessed with many happy memories over Christmastimes past and I enjoy spending time with our local family. We haven't always decorated a whole lot, though. In fact, for the past three years, the entirety of our house decorations fit in two bins. But this year, we felt a bit more festive, so we strung up some fence lights and dug out all the Christmas candles, one for each window—one of my most favorite Christmas traditions as a child was having lights in the windows. I was just reading about how candles in the window traditionally indicate a welcome, an invitation to worship and also to rest. Cue my mom singing an old song from the Brethren Hymnal,
"There's a welcome here. There's a welcome here.
There's a Christian welcome here....
Hours of fellowship oft lighten many burdens that are real,
And true friendship helps to brighten weary hearts that now can feel."
I hope your holiday season is full of light and fellowship.
-Cara
On The CPQ Blog
On Joyous Lessons (Neurodivergent Edition)
Classroom Instruction (the Charlotte Mason way)
Behind the Scenes
Habit of Reading is landing in mailboxes
Fortitude articles are in layout
Upper Years articles are heading to copyedit
Personhood main article writers are being contacted
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New and Improved Digital CPQ Options
We have been working behind the scenes to try to find a better option for our readership for digital magazines, and it’s finally here!
You can now directly subscribe to Common Place Quarterly from our website.
To access your digital magazines, you’ll log into SimpleCirc (once you create an account), click on the Common Place Quarterly in the upper left corner, and your “bookshelf” will be available to you from there!
If you have a hard copy subscription to CPQ, you also have access to the digital versions. If you don’t know your SimpleCirc account number, email info@commonplacequarterly.com for assistance.
Last Days of the Holiday Sale!
Did you grab yourself a couple of back issues during our holiday sale?
Back issues are only $14 each, and the sale will end on December 1st.
Don’t miss it because once they are gone, they are gone!
12 Days of Christmas
From December 1st to December 12th, we’ll be sending you emails for some 12 Days of Christmas CPQ fun! Obviously, this isn’t the true first day of Christmas, but we wanted to do something special for our community without intruding on the family time that comes with the season. Each email will include a sneak peek into Year 6 of Common Place Quarterly, a free downloadable recitation calendar, and some fun holiday traditions from us.
Maybe this isn’t your thing, and that’s ok. You can skip over the emails and simply delete them. They will have “On the 1st day of Christmas” (and so on) email headers. We’ll return to our once-a-month newsletter after the fun.
Get To Know The Editors
What’s Cara…
Reading: Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher: The Epic Life and Immortal Photographs of Edward Curtis by Timothy Egan
Making: a cozy Christmas environment in our home
Eating: Homemade Ramen and leftover Halloween candy
Watching: @thenester talk about Cozy Minimalism
Buying: All the Yoto player make your own cards
Drinking: cooooffeeeeee!
Thinking about: How quickly little kids become kids and how everything changes
Learning: Custer’s last stand and the battle of Little Big Horn from the perspective of the Crow.
What’s Mariah…
Reading: Everything I was reading last month, but I added The Black Tulip by Dumas. I will never look at a tulip the same way again.
Making: charts in our nature journals
Eating: Navy bean and hambone (from Thanksgiving) soup with cornbread
Watching: BBC Little Dorrit episodes
Learning: about the New Horizon’s space mission to Pluto with my son
Drinking: just some water
Thinking about: “Making the best of things” as my friend says.
What’s Sarah…
Reading: Gentle and Lowly by Dane Ortlund, A Song for Nagasaki: The Story of Takashi Nagai a Scientist, Convert, and Survivor of the Atomic Bomb by Paul Glynn, and Counting the Cost by Jill Dillard
Buying: a Lego advent calendar. We aren’t usually advent calendar people, but I thought it was too cute.
Eating: Lots of chicken soup
Watching: old episodes of Numb3rs and wondering if the math is actually mathing. I’ll never know…
Learning: about missions opportunities in Kazakhstan
Drinking: Harney and Sons Tower of London tea and Chocolate mint tea
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