The Love That Envelops Everything, The grandfather gets emotional remembering Christmas Eve that is about to arrive.

My little pieces of heaven, my last days of Advent… Today we light the fourth and final purple candle. The wreath is completely illuminated, and the nativity scene is almost finished. Only the Baby Jesus is missing… because he hasn’t been born yet.

Today we talk about love. The greatest love, the kind that overflows the heart. The love that made God become as tiny as you were when you were babies.

Today’s reading is always the angel’s announcement to Mary or Joseph. I especially like the one about Joseph: a good man who, upon learning that Mary is pregnant, decides to leave her secretly so as not to harm her. But the angel tells him in a dream: “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”

And Joseph got up, obeyed, and cared for Mary and the Child with a love that cannot be put into words.

That’s why this Sunday we prepare the Nativity scene with more love than ever. We add fresh moss, the silver paper river, the little sheep… and leave the manger empty. Some families wrap the Baby Jesus in a white swaddle and hide him; the youngest children search for him on Christmas morning and place him between Mary and Joseph while singing “Christmas Eve.”

Today we also have “the night of good wishes”: each person writes on a gold paper star a good deed they want to do for Christmas (visit a lonely grandparent, share toys, pray for children without a mother or father, etc.). We hang the stars on the tree and keep them to reread them next year.

Final prayer of Advent with the four lit candles:

“God the Father, who so loved the world that you gave us your only Son, Mary, Mother of fair love, Joseph, silent and strong guardian: prepare our hearts as you prepared the manger in Bethlehem. May Jesus be born again in us this Christmas, and may his love change us forever. Amen.”

And now, my children, there is only one thing left to do: to wait awake. Because in just a few days we will hear bells, we will sing “Silent Night,” and the Christ Child will gently knock on the door of our hearts.

Grandpa sends you a big hug and loves you to the moon and back. Merry, holy, and blessed Christmas!