More than 110,000 copies sold as Gayle Boss’s bestselling Advent devotional continues to reshape how readers experience the season
ORLEANS, MA—2026 — Ten years after its original publication, All Creation Waits: The Advent Mystery of New Beginnings by acclaimed author Gayle Boss continues to redefine Advent for thousands of readers seeking a quieter, more contemplative path through the Christmas season.
To commemorate the book’s tenth anniversary, Paraclete Press is releasing a Deluxe Collector’s Edition of the modern classic that has sold more than 110,000 copies across its editions and become one of the most influential Advent devotionals published in the past decade.
Originally released in 2016, All Creation Waits has steadily grown through enthusiastic word-of-mouth, church communities, independent booksellers, educators, and readers who return to it every Advent, inspiring the publication of a gift edition and an award-winning children’s edition. The book was recognized as an ECPA Christmas Bestseller in both 2023 and 2024.
Rather than centering Advent on holiday activity, Boss invites readers into the natural world, where twenty-five northern hemisphere animals—from honeybees and painted turtles to black bears and porcupines—become living parables of waiting, trust, transformation, and hope. Each daily meditation reveals how creatures adapt to winter’s darkness, offering a profound reframing of one of Christianity’s oldest seasons.
“The dark is not an end,” Boss writes throughout the book. “It’s a door. It’s the way a new beginning comes.”
That central insight has resonated with readers navigating not only the annual Advent season but also years marked by pandemic, political division, ecological uncertainty, grief, and personal loss. As interest has grown in contemplative spirituality, creation care, and practices that resist the commercialization of Christmas, All Creation Waits has become a beloved annual tradition for families, churches, schools, and individual readers.
The new Deluxe Edition honors the book’s enduring legacy with a keepsake presentation designed to become a treasured family heirloom. It features:
- A foil-embossed slipcase
- A newly designed cover
- Gilded page edges
- Full-color artwork by award-winning illustrator Sharon Spitz
- Illustrated endpapers
- Ribbon marker
- Premium collectible production throughout
The anniversary edition also marks the evolution of a publishing phenomenon that has expanded beyond the original devotional. The All Creation Waits family now includes:
- The original bestselling edition illustrated with David G. Klein’s celebrated woodcuts
- A beautifully produced hardcover Gift Edition
- The award-winning Children’s Edition illustrated by Sharon Spitz, recipient of the 2025 Christian Book Award and finalist for the Next Generation Indie Book Awards
Together these editions have introduced more than 110,000 readers to Boss’s distinctive vision of Advent rooted in both Christian tradition and the wisdom of creation.
Boss traces the book’s origins to a handmade Advent calendar she created for her young sons over twenty-five years ago. Instead of chocolates or Nativity figurines behind each day’s door, she drew winter animals—a turtle resting beneath frozen water, a hibernating bear, migrating birds, sleeping insects—discovering that each creature embodied a different way of faithfully living through darkness.
Those family reflections eventually became the foundation for All Creation Waits, a work that has been praised for uniting natural history, theology, poetry, and contemplative practice.
Reviewers have consistently recognized the book’s distinctive contribution to contemporary Christian spirituality.
“This book is at once gorgeous and glorious, quiet as falling snow,” writes New York Times bestselling author Sy Montgomery.
The Christian Century called it “gentle lessons in biology” that become “a metaphor for faith.”
Richard Rohr describes the animals as “unique words of God,” each announcing in its own way “the Good News of Advent.”
The Midwest Book Review praised the work as a powerful alternative for readers seeking “the eternal truth the natural world reveals” amid the consumerism of the holiday season.
Boss, who lives in western Michigan, has devoted much of her writing to exploring the intersection of spirituality and the more-than-human world. Her work reflects a lifelong conviction that careful attention to animals and creation can restore people to their deepest humanity and awaken fresh understanding of God’s presence.
Illustrator Sharon Spitz’s luminous artwork for the anniversary edition deepens that vision with richly detailed full-color paintings that celebrate both the beauty and mystery of the natural world.
As churches and readers increasingly seek Advent resources that emphasize reflection over consumption and hope over haste, All Creation Waits has established itself as a modern classic whose message has only become more relevant over the past decade.
The 10th Anniversary Deluxe Edition invites a new generation of readers to discover—or rediscover—the enduring wisdom at the heart of the book: that throughout creation, winter teaches what Advent has always proclaimed—that endings become beginnings, darkness prepares the way for light, and all creation waits in hope.
All Creation Waits – Deluxe Edition
ISBN: 9798893480764| On Sale 9.29.2026 | 7 x 8.39 | 200 pp. | Hardcover in slipcase | $42.99
About the Author
Gayle Boss is the author of All Creation Waits: The Advent Mystery of New Beginnings and Wild Hope: Stories for Lent from the Vanishing. A lifelong Michigan resident, she writes about the intersection of Christian spirituality, the natural world, and the human-animal bond. Her work explores how attentive presence to creation restores us to our deepest selves.
About the Illustrator
Sharon Spitz is an award-winning illustrator whose work celebrates nature, wildlife, and sustainability through richly textured illustrations that blend traditional and digital techniques. She lives and works between Haifa and Berlin.
About Paraclete Press
Partnering with Protestant, Catholic, Evangelical, and Orthodox voices, Paraclete Press is an independent Christian publisher dedicated to publishing books and music of spiritual depth, thoughtfully created and beautifully presented.
Media Contact:
Danielle Bushnell | 774-722-5181 | danielleb@paracletepress.com
Review copies and author interviews are available upon request.
All Creation Waits 10th Anniversary Fact Sheet
Ten years after its original publication and with more than 110,000 copies sold, All Creation Waits: The Advent Mystery of New Beginnings by acclaimed author Gayle Boss continues to redefine Advent for thousands of readers seeking a quieter, more contemplative path through the Christmas season.
Timeline
2016 — Original edition published.
2022 — Gift Edition published.
2023 — Named an ECPA Christmas Bestseller and children’s edition published.
2024 — Returns to ECPA Christmas Bestseller list.
2025 — Children’s Edition wins Christian Book Award and becomes Next Generation Indie Book Awards finalist.
2026 — Celebrates tenth anniversary with Deluxe Collector’s Edition.
Anniversary Statistics
- 10 years in print
- More than 110,000 copies sold across editions
- Four published editions
- Two consecutive ECPA Christmas Bestseller recognitions
- One Christian Book Award-winning Children’s Edition
- Readers in churches, schools, retreat centers, libraries, and homes
- Annual Advent tradition for thousands of families
