Monday, November 29, 2010

Advent

This is a re-post of something I wrote back in 2006 (I don't know if my bloggity muse is napping, on vacation, or gone forever; time, I suppose, will tell. . .)

At any rate, 'tis the season. . . And while I'm at it, I'll give a shout-out to my good friend Suldog, whose 'Thanksgiving Comes First' campaign against premature Christmas-y-ness partially inspired my dredging this up from the archives. . .

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In our culture, the Friday after Thanksgiving marks the more-or-less 'official' beginning of the commercial season of 'Christmas', with the sales, the extended hours at the malls, special advertisements, etc., etc (although, honestly, the stores have been in 'Christmas mode' pretty much since they took down the Halloween stuff; maybe even before that). It's what much, if not most, of our culture thinks of when they think of 'Christmas', but less and less does it have any discernible connection with the actual content and meaning of Christmas.

One time I was visiting family in a large, midwestern city over Thanksgiving, and the following day, the local TV news had several reporters on site at various malls, doing interviews with shoppers. They asked one guy what the 'true meaning of Christmas' was, and he said, "We gotta get out here and spend money to keep the economy going strong." I am not making this up; he actually said that.

I sometimes wish that they would come up with a different name for the year-end consumerist feeding-frenzy. Just leave Christmas out of it. Or, maybe we should come up with another name for the celebration of Christ's Birth and Incarnation. Let 'em have 'Christmas' for the 'shopping season' - admit that we've lost it, and start over with a new name.

(*sigh*)

Anyway, yesterday was the First Sunday of Advent - the beginning of the Christian season of spiritual preparation for Christmas. As I've gone along, I've come to really love Advent, imperfectly though I may observe it. In rough terms, Advent is to Christmas what Lent is to Easter, just with not quite the same 'penitential' emphasis. Rightly done, Advent is a time of contemplation, a time to step back from the normal frenzy of daily life, take a few deep breaths, and anticipate the coming joy of Christmas. Advent is pretty much the polar opposite of 'consumer Christmas'. Pausing for contemplation is not a thing Americans are terribly inclined to do (perhaps I should rather say it's a thing that we're inclined to do terribly).

In the larger American culture, the 'Christmas season' runs from the Friday after Thanksgiving until Christmas Day, but in traditional Christian circles, the Christmas season begins on Christmas Day and runs until Epiphany (January 6) - thus, the 'Twelve Days of Christmas'. So, when most of our neighbors are finished with Christmas, we're just getting started. It always perplexes me just a bit to see all the Christmas trees out on the curb on the 26th; when Jen was a kid, Catholics didn't even put their trees up until Christmas Eve. And, just as I'm getting pumped to sing 'Joy to the World' and 'O Come, All Ye Faithful', most of my neighbors are sick of hearing them.

Maybe I should blame it on the Magi - they started the whole giving-gifts-at-Christmas thing. I doubt they had any clue how far it would get out-of-hand, though.

When it comes right down to it, though, I suppose I've got to admit that my spiritual preparation for Christmas is my own responsibility. It's not up to American culture to get me spiritually prepared. It might be nice if the culture were more supportive (or even just less disruptive) of what I'm trying to accomplish, but it is what it is.

So, our family is setting out on Advent. If, over the next few weeks, I seem a little reticent and low-key about Christmas, you'll understand, won't you? And then, if I'm getting all Christmas-y just when you're getting tired of it all, you'd be very kind to indulge me. In the meantime, I'll be over here, singing 'O Come, O Come Emmanuel', in a minor key. . .

8 comments:

  1. I would be happy to do away with all the secular aspects.........it seems as though it's a never ending race with all the baking, shopping, decorating, concerts, etc. I'd love to 'close up shop.'

    The problem for parents is that many of us are 'doing it for the kids' and it has turned into a trap. Not sure how to get out of it.

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  2. Thanks for the shout-out, and for re-posting this. It's a wonderful piece.

    You reminded me of how, when I was a kid, My Father would put up the tree sometime around the 23rd, and we wouldn't decorate it until the 24th. MY WIFE and I don't exchange gifts until Epiphany, partly because that's the 12th day and partly because it allows us to concentrate on giving to others during the more-secularly-popular season.

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  3. Suldog pointed me your way because I mentioned Advent on my own blog today, although not as eloquently as this. Actually, I cheated and just copied/pasted something from another site. Yours is much better though. I'm going to point my readers your way, too...

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  4. Cocotte - I know what you mean about 'doing it for the kids'. Maybe, thru sheer dumb luck, or cussed-ness, we never started doing some of those things. . .

    Suldog - And that way, you get all the after-Christmas sales, too. . .

    These days, we put our tree up about a week or so before Christmas (after that, trees get hard to find), and decorate it sometime in the week before Christmas. We usually send out our Christmas cards/letters sometime around New Year's Day (so at least we get 'em out while it's still Christmas)

    Barbara - I'm so glad you stopped by! And thanks for your kind words. . .

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  5. it's a worthy repost. and "o come, o come, emmanuel" is my favorite christmas hymn. such ancient yearning so well and simply expressed.

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  6. Lime - Actually, there's a whole liturgical history behind 'O Come', if you're interested. . .

    But the list of 'Advent hymns' is a pretty short one; nice that at least one of 'em is so good. . . ;)

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  7. thanks! i appreciated that link. i knew i always loved it for the longing of the fulfillment of prophecy and knew it was a piece that went back quite far but the fuller explanation and the acrostic....very rich.

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  8. Glad you liked it. I hadn't known of the acrostic either, until I looked up the article. . .

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