Last night while I was at work, Yoli told the girls that the following day would be Dec. 1, and we would start our Advent calendar.
This is our third Christmas using this calendar, and it’s pretty neat. It’s a manger scene with a bunch of hooks. Each day, you open a little door and inside is a wooden figure (like an angel, a shepherd, Mary, Joseph, etc). Then you hang the figure somewhere in the scene.
Anyway, Yoli told Jadzia that we would let the girls take turns in reverse birth order. So, Josie would go first, Ludi the next day, and Jadzia last.
Jadzia didn’t take this very well and argued with Yoli, who told her she would ask me for my opinion after work.
Obviously I agreed with my wife’s position. At breakfast this morning I pulled out the Bible and read to Jadzia from Mark 9:
(Jesus and the disciples) came to Capernaum. When he was in the house, he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the road?” But they kept quiet because on the way they had argued about who was the greatest.
Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, “Anyone who wants to be first must be the very last, and the servant of all.”
Then I explained that as the oldest daughter, Jadzia had already done many things before her sisters, and would continue to be the first for the rest of her life: the first to go to school, the first to go to AWANA, the first to learn how to drive, etc. It was only fair that sometimes the smallest get to go first.
That didn’t stop Jadzia from bawling, as she is prone to do when she doesn’t get her way.
But later in the day, she came to me and said “I get to be the last one!”
She had counted all the doors on the Advent calendar and realized that she would be the one to open the Christmas Eve door, which is the one where we always put the figure of Jesus.
Sometimes going last has its advantages after all.