November 2023

The annual “Five Places of Christmas” will return from 10 a.m.

WICHITA — As first-graders file through the cafeteria line at Earhart Elementary School in Wichita, they pick up peaches, broccoli and cartons of milk.Lunch supervisor Rachel Smith helps them with their trays and makes quick notes on her tablet to log names with lunches.

Until this month it’s likely few have considered a connection between the Geminids meteor shower - or the earliest sunset of the year - and the Christmas season.But that connection is being created, in a project of Rebecca Barrett-Fox, PhD, Director of Online Learning and Digital Pedagogy at Hesston College and Andrea Braker, owner of Community Creative Services.Observing the meteor shower, or that early sunset, are just two of 24 events - both natural and man made - that appear on “’Tis the Season of Kindness 2023 Advent in Harvey County.”A different kind of Advent Calendar, born out of COVID with a church trying to keep people connected“My church, New Creation Fellowship Church, became deliberate about helping people prepare for Christmas,” Barrett-Fox said.