Christmas Trees, Candles, Lights & Memories
Musings on the season of Advent
For the first time in decades, I put up our Christmas tree an entire week before Thanksgiving. It felt weird and strange but also right. With Thanksgiving being so late this year, it seemed right for us to have the tree ready so we could enjoy it for longer. I knew that getting a head start would prevent me from screaming at my family for not helping me or understanding how much work this tree took!
Yep, if the movie Bad Mom’s Christmas needed cast members for a live show, I would audition and probably get cast!
Christmas can get stressful, and this season can get busy for many of us. Over the years, I, too, like many others, have got caught up in the rush of the season. Advertisers start promoting products and almost romanticizing the season earlier and earlier every year. Are you even celebrating Christmas if you don’t have the perfect tree, lights, perfect party clothes, gifts, appetizers, table settings, holiday cards, etc.?
Many of us have fallen prey to those emotions at one time or another in our lives. If you haven’t ever, this blog is probably not for you. You can get on with your day. But I most definitely have. I have swung the extremes of the pendulum from trying to have everything just right to not doing anything. I have considered not having our tree up for the last few years as we traveled to India in December. Having her standing in the corner alone in an empty house seemed a waste.
But the point is that the Christmas season can be stressful. Over the years, I have learned to slow down, not get caught up in details, and rest in the reason for the season.
This brings me to Advent. On December 1st, Christians around the globe will celebrate the first Sunday of Advent.
Advent, from the Latin word “Adventus”, is also translated from the Greek word “Parousia.” This word refers to the birth of Christ and His Second Coming, and Advent tends to focus on both.
Advent means “arrival” and signifies the start of an event or the arrival of a person. Christian communities spend Advent remembering and celebrating Jesus’ arrival on earth. Reflecting on the humble and unexpected birth, we anticipate His return to unite Heaven and Earth once and for all.
In her book on Advent, Tish Harrison Warren writes, “When we enter into the waiting of Advent, we do so not primarily as individuals but with all the people of faith throughout time and around the globe. Because of this, Advent specifically is a way to reach toward timelessness through time itself. It is a season marked by days and weeks, yet through it, we enter into the eternal story of God and God’s work on earth.”
Preparing for Christmas and the birth of a king is a season of anticipation. Even if we are not always conscious of Christ’s birth, we are busy baking, decorating, cleaning, and a million other things occupy our minds as we contemplate what Christmas will be like. It is an exciting season as we all work together to get ready. The king is coming! The king is coming! But while we are hopeful and waiting in joy, we also know that our lives will be “subjected to scrutiny.”
We live in a world filled with false kings, and we are the ones who build them. During this season and many others, we want what we want. A perfect house, the perfect gifts, days filled with parties and celebrations, often catching up with the million things that must be done before Christmas day arrives.
We often “barrel into the celebration of Christmas before we enter into the gift of repentance.”
In this season so bright and filled with lights, there is also the element of sadness. Sin consumes us in many ways. Pain, brokenness, sickness, and pride all reveal themselves in our hearts, often in ways we least expect.
Creation groans in weariness and longs, eagerly anticipating relief and searching for glimpses of hope, peace, joy, and love.
Advent is a time of waiting, a time of reflection and contemplation. We wait in the stillness, the silence, for the filling from God. In Christ’s birth, there is the filling of the emptiness in our souls and in this world. The Light of the world is born for us, and He is the gift, the Christ child, born to die for our salvation.
So as we enter this season, let this year be the one where we slow down, where we sit in anticipation, with hearts and hands open, to not just jump ahead to Christmas, but to sit with the groaning, the pain, and sadness, with the awareness of what comes at the end. Let us not miss the joy and hope Advent can teach us by rushing too fast and too far ahead. Let us savor the moments and the days, teaching our little ones the sacred truths and the joy we can find in waiting.
May this season of Advent fill every one of you with hope, joy, peace, and love as you wait and prepare your hearts and hearth for the coming of our King.
Here are some resources for Advent to use individually, as a group, and with your little ones.
Advent: The Season of Hope, Fullness of Time, by Tish Harrison Warren
Exactly my thoughts this year- are we celebrating the birth of Christ or has Christmas become a flashy glittery consumerism feast?