Saturday, November 30, 2013

Advent as Advent

   I have to begin this post with a little apology in advance - I'm always rather irritable right after Thanksgiving.  I love the Advent season but I hate the way most people observe, or should I say don't observe it.  In the midst of the complete secularization of the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, it has somehow become appropriate to put up the tree and hoist the holly at the end of November rather than the end of December.  The month of December is dedicated to an end-of-year feasting that is more appropriate to the Twelve Days of Christmas, which I hardly need note come after the 25th, not before.  Together with the manic frenzy of shopping and parties, all these things are number one on the list of things that really grind my gears.

   Perhaps I feel this way because I loved the anticipation that built up in the month of December as a child.  Growing up, we always went to a Christmas tree plantation to cut down our tree on the Saturday before the Third Sunday of Advent, but it remained undecorated in the living room.  Santa Claus always decorated the tree, and we awoke early on Christmas morning to behold it in its splendor.  Sometime in mid-December we would begin setting up the Nativity scene and other decorations, but it was always closer to the actual holiday of Christmas.  Nothing ever came down before January 6.  Thanksgiving Day was just Thanksgiving Day, and we had no idea of ever going shopping in the days following it.  That weekend was dedicated to cookie production and assembly lines, although we were not allowed to eat any until Christmas Eve.  Everything about the month of December was suffused with a longing and yearning for Christmas Day and the holidays which followed.

   As an adult (and I suppose especially as a priest), I like to keep Advent as Advent, even though I've adapted many of the customs.  I still refuse to put up any decorations, including the tree, until the Third Sunday of Advent - Gaudete Sunday.  I decorate the tree on Christmas Eve morning, listening to the live broadcast of Lessons and Carols from Cambridge, tearing up every year as I hear the quavering voice of a young chorister begin the first verse of "Once in Royal David's City."

   Advent is replete with customs and traditions that make it a special season in its own right.  St. Nicholas and St. Lucy have their feast days, there are Advent calendars and Jesse Trees, and dozens of other things we can do that are a more appropriate way of building anticipation for the feast of Christmas.  Show some restraint and don't cave to the secular culture around you.  Instead of Christmas arriving with a fizzle and a pop at the end of premature celebration, let it dawn with all the wonder, excitement, and awe God means it to inspire.

No comments:

Post a Comment