Preparing For Advent

Christmas is a big deal in our house. The season from the first Sunday in Advent to Epiphany is my favourite time of the church year. For me, Christmas is incredibly special: no Christmas, no everything that follows after…

Christmas is Good News. And, I think that there are more cultural connections with other people to communicate that Christmas is Good News than there are to communicate that Easter is Good News, at least where we live.

Christmas is a big deal in our house. Each Sunday through Advent, Jo brings out a few more decorations, so that we build towards Christmas itself. Tonight, she got out The Christmas Box, and emptied its contents on the living-room floor, because she and a friend of ours are planning a Celebrating Christmas event to which we will invite friends from the school playground, and at which they will present ideas for building family traditions to mark the festive season. Here are some suggestions…

Involve all of the senses:
Sight – Advent wreaths/candles, tree decorations, lights…with their symbolic reference to Life, and the Light of the World…
Sound – play Christmas CDs, whether traditional carols or classical or Bing Crosby and Nat King Cole…find, and read out-loud, Christmas poems, both classic and new…bring out books re-telling the Christmas Story for children, and read them at bedtime (and then put them away for a year so they stay special – the books, not your children!)…
Smell – is perhaps the most evocative sense for our memory…candles or burning oil or pot pouri scented with frankincense and myrrh…
Taste – mince pies, lebkuchen (gingerbread cookies), mulled wine…foods that make Christmas special…
Touch – nativity set – perhaps add pieces over several days; Advent calendars; the Christmas Story books (again)…

Beg, Borrow or Steal Traditions:
You might love the traditions you grew up with. Or you might not. You might not have grown up with any. Some we’ve stolen include…
A feast at Epiphany, where small presents symbolizing gold, frankincense and myrrh – as simple as gold nail varnish for the ladies – are laid on every guest’s place setting…
Giving our god-children a Christmas tree decoration each year – often as a gift-tag on their main present from us – so that they build up a collection until they have something with which to start their own traditions when they eventually leave home…

“Santa” may be an anagram of “Satan,” but, Saint Nicholas was a Christian Bishop:
I unashamedly love Father Christmas, because his story is the central Christian story of redemption – he threw three bags of gold through the window so that the daughters of a poor man did not need to sell themselves into slavery. Indeed, it is the story of one who has experienced redemption bringing redemption into the lives of others…
…In the spirit of Father Christmas, or Santa Klaus, why not ‘give’ goats, wells, toilets, or school materials? Check out Oxfam Unwrapped or Present Aid for ideas…


Of course, Christmas can be a hard time for people, too. I wouldn’t want to pretend it wasn’t. For example, more divorces are set in motion in January, following Christmas, than at any other time of the year. Or, on a personal note, last Christmas my sister, who had just come out of hospital following surgery to remove a brain tumour, was taken back into hospital by ambulance from the Christmas Dinner table…

The Christmas gift of myrrh points to pain at the heart of Christmas. Several years ago now, a friend of ours lost her father in a car crash in Advent. At the time I wrote her a poem, sealed it in an envelope, and gave it to her saying, open it when you feel ready. She has had the poem written out by a calligrapher, and it comes out in the hall each Advent, as part of their own tradition. Which is to say that I do think that the pain in Christmas can be folded-into the mix in a way that remains Good News, without cheapening that Good News in any way.


Advent , family , traditions , mission , emerging church