A personal history.
Movement 1.
I did not grow-up with Advent as a season of waiting. Like many people in contemporary society I grew up with a strange season that came to span all the days from Thanksgiving to the Day-after-Christmas as a kind of elongated Holiday season… “elongated” is maybe too generous… “distended to the point of rupture” is probably a better description. Sometimes it started as early as the Day-after-Halloween.
Under this regime one arrives already tired-out to Christmas Day, humilated and defeated by a murder of Peppermint Mocha Frappes, “Santa Baby” renditions, Happy-Holidays-themed events, TV Specials, shopping-trips, parties, and days of existential struggle in which we each play the role of Charlie Brown or Cindy-Lou Who and ask the ‘deep’ question “What is the real meaning of Christmas?” with all the towering superbia of a 2nd-year Graduate student and all of the sentiment of the farewells on the last night of summer camp.
There was goodness there, but it was exhausting and left one feeling a bit strung-out. The Gospel was preached, the Nativity proclaimed, and folks made merry. But in all the rush and picking-and-eating-too-soon-ness I think something really was missed, or fell-out along the way. The questions posed by Charlie Brown and Cindy-Lou Who were very very close to home.
Movement 2.
I stumbled into the liturgical calendar. Praise the Lord! I read folks like Peter Leithart. Praise the Lord! I discovered ‘Advent’ as a liturgical season. Along with this discovery, however, did not come a hallowed gratitude. A good chunk of that towering superbia remained. And the proud are never more in danger of hell than when the proud are correct in their statements. I dressed in purple and dressed-down anyone who wished me a ‘happy holiday’ before the evening of the 24th. It was Advent damnit. I was waiting for the 12 days of Christmas for the real observance of the Nativity. I was gonna put the “holy” back in “holidays” –so what if it demanded that I take some of the joy out?
There was some goodness here as well. Christ was proclaimed, the Spirit present, the Father worshiped, the Gospel preached. I found myself fully able to enter into the fullness of Christmas, having allowed Christmas to ripen on Advent’s tender vine. I had stumbled into the great secret of Christian festivity – the waiting for things to be ready. I learned wisdom and some discipline. I found that one did not have to search for the “real meaning of Christmas.” Christmas was what it had always been –a magical day on which God Incarnate was born into the world to save us from our sins. Of course it made us generous and festive. It was a thing worthy to wait for.
But there were struggles here too. Beyond the mere Bah-humbugery and Adventine Grinchyness, this kind of highfalutin approach to “observing Advent” also carried with it the seeds of its own subversion. What was I supposed to make of myself if I went to my neighbor’s (or boss’s, or friends’, or beloved’s) Christmas party? Could I make merry? What if NPR played a portion of Bach’s Passion of St. Matthew or a folk setting to a Christmas tune by Ralph Vaughn Willaims? It made one feel like an addict, living in secret shame. One would quietly wait for everyone to leave, close the curtains and lock the doors before hanging-up Christmas lights, wrapping presents, or steeping some mulled wine. One cannot do those things without a little Bing Crosby… and one cannot listen to Bing Crosby sing a duet with David Bowie and not sip a little spiked eggnog… and once one starts sipping spiked-eggnog what is there left to do to complete the full-scale relapse into celebrating-Christmas-early than to turn-on A Muppet Christmas Carol?
Try as I may to avoid allowing Christmas to bleed into Advent, it seemed that it couldn’t be avoided. Something about Advent brought-on Christmas. Maybe, I realized, the boundaries between Advent’s purples and Christmas’s golds were intentionally porous –they were made to bleed into one another.
Movement 3.
Advent leads us to Christmas. Advent is both a remembering of the waiting for the First Coming of Jesus and a observance of the waiting we are doing now for the Second Coming of Jesus. As such it necessarily blooms in Christmas ‘Glorias!’ For God is a keeper of his promises. He kept his first promise for which we waited, and he will keep his second promise also.
The creep of Christmas into Advent is a natural and blessed thing so long as it is in fact a creep. How do we both “celebrate the season” while also “wait patiently through Advent”? We do it slowly. Love takes time. Lovers take time. Romeo’s haste, for instance, makes him a poor lover. Love matures and ripens and glorifies. Love sees things through to the end, for love is not afraid of the grave.
The question Advent poses to us is not so much “How do I avoid letting any Christmas ruin my precious Advent?” but rather “How do I allow Advent to slow-roast my Christmas pleasures?”
Set-up and decorate slowly. Let the decking of your halls incite your eagerness.
Partake of Christmas merriment measuredly. What are you going to save for Christmastide? Remember, it’s 12 days long! Plan to keep it in a way that will allow you to keep all of it. Of all the great Christmas films out there which was are the best? Say to yourself, “These ones are hallowed, these I shall keep until the 12 days of Christmas.”
Let Christmas music be a merry interruption to your Advent music. In order for that to happen you must have Advent music. Here are 5: The King Shall Come When Morning Dawns; O Come, O Come Emmanuel; Star in the East; Hills of the North Rejoice; Bozrah; Sing We the Song of Emmanuel; The Canticle of Turning. There are many more. Make a playlist. Let that playlist be surprised by sudden appetizers of carols.
Brides do not thunder down the aisle at their weddings; English majors do not binge-read Shakespeare; chefs do not microwave osso buco; vintners do not “whip-up” batches of the best wine. But this does not mean nothing is happening in their waitings. Something is indeed happening –it is just happening slowly.
May your Advent this year be deliciously slow, and merrily gradual.