Advent

Amy has me thinking about Advent, and realizing that I haven’t planned a thing. But as I reflect, there are some things we will do that fall into the category of automatic — er, traditional — that help to make the season meaningful even though we do them every year. It’s like our family liturgy.

There will be the tree, sometime in the next week or two. I don’t like choosing one, and my husband doesn’t really like decorating it. So he and the girls usually pick one out and bring it home, and I and the girls decorate it while he lies on the couch and points out empty spots. It works for us. There will be old homemade ornaments that bring squeals as they come out of the box, and ones I wish I could make disappear (some are merely ugly without being all that meaningful, let’s be honest). But part of the discipline of the tree is the inclusive nature of its decoration (Janet reminds herself sternly…).

There will be sugar cookies with colored icing, cut into shapes (all of which end up looking swollen, rather than crisply edged like my mother’s used to). There will be chocolate spritz (press cookies) and haystacks (butterscotch melted over chow mein noodles and cashews) and cinnamon buns for Christmas breakfast.

There will be an Advent reading that the girls and I work through together. We did Tabitha’s Travels a few years ago, and though I wasn’t crazy about it the girls want to do another book in that series this year. So I’m looking into getting a copy of Jotham’s Journey or Bartholomew’s Passage. We will probably also read some favorite stories including The Other Wise Man (Henry Van Dyke), The Doll’s Christmas (Tasha Tudor), and The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.

This year I have two budding pianists, and a book with Christmas piano duets that they could probably master. So there will be that music. I’ll pull out my solo Christmas arrangements to enjoy at the piano too. And of course there will be the Christmas cd’s… Vince Guaraldi, Liz Story, Michael W. Smith and Steven Curtis Chapman and Amy Grant and Third Day and Handel.

I’m not generally very movie-oriented, but certain classics come to mind (and to the Netflix queue) this time of year: Going My Way (Bing Crosby as a mild-mannered priest), Miracle on 34th Street (“I believe, I believe, it’s silly but I be — STOP Uncle Fred, STOP!”), Holiday Inn (Fred Astaire and Bing Crosby dream of love and a white Christmas in song and dance), The Little Drummer Boy (very old clay-mation, but what can I say — it’s tradition), and of course The Grinch Who Stole Christmas (It came without ribbons, boxes or bags!).

A World Vision catalog came in the mail, and though the left hand isn’t supposed to know what the right hand is doing, I have to say that choosing some items to give to those in need is probably the most meaningful thing we’ll do this year. We chose three things, one from each daughter and one from my husband and me, and prayed for the recipients before sending it off. When I was a child my mother sponsored a girl through World Vision, and the girl wrote us a letter. I still tear up when I remember that, as I do when I flip through this catalog. There is no feeling like it.

As for shopping and family plans, I have no idea… We’ve discussed nothing. It will come together, I’m sure, but it’s going to be a materially minimal Christmas this year — partly by necessity, but mostly by choice.

It’s quite a hodge-podge, our Christmas doings, but it works. Now that I’ve gathered in these few threads of preparatory thought, I’ll be ready for the season to begin. (Thanks for getting me thinking about it, Amy!) I am truly thirsty this Advent — feeling especially needy for spiritual reassurance, and for reminding that we are not left alone in a universe empty of the divine. Ann Patchett writes, “If you’re trying to find out what’s coming next, turn off everything you own that has an OFF switch and listen.” That seems like a good thought for Advent this year. If ever a season can rip open the cloud cover and accommodate a gleam of transcendence, this is it. Even so, come Lord Jesus!