There’s something magical about December evenings, the kind of magic that smells like cinnamon, sounds like Bing Crosby, and looks like the slow descent of powdered sugar across a peaceful kitchen.

Unless, of course, you live in my house.

Then powdered sugar falls less like a gentle winter snow and more like the opening scene of an apocalyptic holiday movie titled “The Day the Baking Died.”

Let me set the scene.

The other night my younger two and I were in the kitchen while my wife, my beautiful, patient, “why-do-you-talk-to-the-kids-like-you’re-on-a-cooking-show” wife, was working. Now, typically, she handles the baking with the kids. And that’s for two very noble, deeply spiritual reasons…

Reason one: For most of my career, while normal families baked cookies and drank cocoa, I was in a professional kitchen screaming things like, “YES CHEF!” and “WHO BURNT THE BRUSSELS SPROUTS?!” Being home during December, let alone baking, was a luxury.

Reason two: I have a tendency, some might say a calling, to treat my home kitchen like a working kitchen. And let’s just say Gordon Ramsay possesses my body like a culinary poltergeist whenever a kid dumps too much powdered sugar into a bowl or over-whips butter into a slippery, greasy crime scene. So historically, for the safety of all involved, I stay on the savory side of Christmas. But this year was different.

We were making three items: my mom’s Chex Mix, my sister-in-law’s Puppy Chow, and my personal favorite, Santa’s Cookies. (All of which, by the way, can be found in my book The Christmas Table, along with stories and lessons like this, available on Amazon… hint hint, wink wink, slide that to the top of your holiday shopping list.)

Even though I try to limit sweets in the house during Christmas, because I know my weaknesses, and I’m not trying to inhale an entire tray of fudge at midnight like some kind of diabetic raccoon, it was good holiday bonding time.

I set my son up with the cookies. He’s twelve. He can read… for the most part, when he wants to. He can follow a recipe… for the most part. When he wants to. When the planets align. When the Holy Spirit descends with a fresh Pentecost on his attention span.

I give him the cookie job. He enjoys cooking like Dad and I love to see him beam with pride when he kills it in the kitchen. I want him to be able tell his friends, “Yeah, I made those,” and soak in that pre-teen kitchen clout.

My youngest, meanwhile, was assigned to the Puppy Chow. Safe, I thought. Simple, I thought. Foolproof, I thought, like the Israelites approaching the Red Sea thinking, “Surely nothing crazy is about to happen.”

I melt chocolate, butter, and peanut butter on the stove while my little helper stirs. I tell her we’re going to coat the mixture with powdered sugar next. She nods seriously, like I just handed her the keys to the family legacy. While she’s placing Chex into two bowls, one for Chex Mix, one for Puppy Chow, I go help her brother.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the exact moment the universe began plotting against me. In the corner of my eye, I see a small white cloud, just a whisper of powdered sugar floating through the air. I think that’s odd…

Then comes the second one. Bigger. More ominous.

I whip around just in time to witness a mushroom cloud of powdered sugar erupt from the bowl like a confectionary Hiroshima and the damage was almost as bad.

Most dads see their daughter pouring in too much sugar and think, “Oh no!” She didn’t dump the measured amount.

No. She dumped all that existed in the house.

 I saw my entire household supply of powdered sugar vanish in one apocalyptic dump.

Every last particle.

If the wise men had brought powdered sugar instead of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, she would’ve dumped their bags too. I hurried over, doing my best to suppress a full Ramsay meltdown, when suddenly my son announced,

“Dad…” Long pause. You know the kind of pause that says, “Prepare your heart.”

“The cookies look weird.”

I closed my eyes like a man receiving bad medical news. I walked over and saw them: melting. Flattening. Oozing off the tray like they were trying to escape. He had whipped the butter so aggressively that instead of cookies forming, we got something between a sugar cookie and a lava flow. A cookie bar. A cookie puddle.

At this point, the chef in me threw up his hands. A deep internal scream echoed through my soul. Then I looked at their faces. And something holy happened.

They didn’t care. They were having the time of their lives. They weren’t stressed. They weren’t embarrassed. They weren’t worried about appearances or perfection. They were simply, present. And in that moment, something like Advent cracked open inside me.

The cookies were a mess…

But they tasted incredible. Crisp edges, chewy centers, like the cookie equivalent of a lovable underdog. The Puppy Chow? Sweet enough to put a Clydesdale into diabetic shock. But my daughter loved it. And in true wabi-sabi fashion, those uneven little sugar-chocolate-peanut-butter lumps turned into these glorious fudge-like bites.

Through all the chaos, the melting, the mushroom cloud, the mess, the laughter—I realized I was never going to forget that night. And that’s when Immanuel stepped into my kitchen and whispered, “This is the point.”

“Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel.”— Isaiah 7:14

Advent is about the God who shows up. Not the God who waits for you to have it together. Not the God who demands perfection. Not the God who needs the house cleaned first. He comes as He always does—into the mess, into the chaos, into the unfinished, the imperfect, the un-Instagrammable. Presence over perfection.

The whole season is God saying: “I’m not asking you to be perfect. I’m asking you to be present.” And suddenly, my kitchen wasn’t just a crime scene of powdered sugar and melting desserts, it was a parable.

There’s a Japanese philosophy called wabi-sabi: the idea that beauty isn’t found in the flawless, but in the imperfect. Cracks filled with gold. Bowls with seams that tell a story. Broken pieces made more valuable by the restoration.

Our lives are the bowls. God’s love is the gold. And sometimes the most beautiful Advent hospitality looks like inviting someone into a life that isn’t flawless, but is filled with the gold of Immanuel’s love. Because Immanuel didn’t come into a perfect world.

He came:

when nobody had room

when Mary was exhausted

when Joseph was overwhelmed

when the setting smelled like barn animals

when nothing looked spiritual

when everything looked wrong

That’s the blueprint. If God Himself chose to enter the world through imperfect hospitality… you don’t need a spotless home to welcome someone to the table. You just need room.

Your home may not be perfect. Your kids might be sticky. Your cookies might melt. Your powder sugar might explode like a nuclear winter. But hospitality was never about perfection. It’s about presence.

Advent hospitality welcomes:

the weary

the lonely

the overwhelmed

the grieving

the prodigal

the single mom

the exhausted dad

the financially stressed family

the person who feels like the inn is full everywhere they go

Advent hospitality says: “There’s room for you in my imperfect life, because there was room for me in His.” You’re not offering people your perfection. You’re offering them His presence.

One of the most beautiful truths of Advent is this: God did not just come near us.

He came with us. Not above. Not around. Not checking in once a year like a distant relative. But with us. When you welcome someone in December, into your living room, into your church pew, into your kitchen, you’re practicing small-scale incarnation.

You’re putting skin on compassion. You’re embodying hope. You’re showing up in a way that whispers: “God hasn’t forgotten you. You matter.”

That’s Advent. Not the lights. Not the décor. Not the performance. Presence.

The irony of the Nativity is that the Maker of galaxies couldn’t book a room. So humanity made room in the only place available. Not perfect space. Not ideal space. Not prepared space. Just enough space. Your job this Advent isn’t to create the perfect environment. Your job is to create enough room.

Enough room for:

one conversation

one meal

one hug

one neighbor

one lonely soul

one weary wanderer

one moment of grace

Enough room to say: “You belong here.”

Here’s the spiritual secret: When you show love, you aren’t just showing up. You’re bringing the aroma of Christ with you. You carry Immanuel in your presence. Every act of hospitality, every open seat, every cup of cocoa, every messy-kitchen moment, is a living Advent sermon.

You’re telling the world: “God is still with us. God still comes close.”

That night with my kids? That was Advent hospitality. Not because the food was perfect, Lord knows it wasn’t. Not because the kitchen was clean, powdered sugar says otherwise. Not because I was a picture-perfect dad, I was one meltdown away from screaming, “IT’S RAW!” and flipping a pan.

But because I was present. And in that moment, presence became holiness. My kids didn’t need a perfect dad. They needed a present one. Just like we don’t need a perfect life to host others, we just need a present one.

Immanuel is God’s hospitality toward us, the hospitality of presence.

So we echo Him by:

showing up

making room

offering presence

welcoming the weary

embracing the imperfect

embodying compassion

mirroring the manger

filling our cracks with His gold

Because the God who came in straw and swaddling cloth doesn’t need perfect homes,

just open ones. Your table doesn’t need to be fancy, just willing. Your cookies don’t need to look beautiful, just shared. Your words don’t need to be eloquent, just sincere. Your life doesn’t need to be flawless, just filled with the gold of His love.

Advent hospitality is simply this: God came close, so we come close too.

Stay Salty