Category Archives: Advent

Dec 01 2013
Advent

Preparing

Preparing

Today begins the Advent season, a time of preparation for Christmas. Here in the Northern Hemisphere, the nights grow increasingly darker on the road toward the Winter Solstice, and we counter that increasing darkness by increasing light from within. The sun may be growing weaker, sinking lower and lower in the sky, but each Sunday, beginning tonight, we light more and more candles in our homes. The tradition in most places is a ring of four candles, three of which are purple, one rose (or pink). Some cultures use three blue candles and a white one in place of the purple and rose candles, but the sentiment is the same. The first purple candle is lit tonight, on the First Sunday of Advent: one candle in the darkness. Come the Second Sunday, we light two purple candles. The Third Sunday of Advent is known as Gaudete Sunday and we light those same two purple candles plus the rose one, to symbolize a hint of joy and greater excitement as we get closer to Christmas. And on the Fourth Sunday of Advent, all four candles are lit. By then, we are deep into the darkest nights of the year, and our four candles are quite a beacon of light, and of hope.

This year, the Fourth Sunday of Advent happens to be the day after the Winter Solstice, which will occur on the 21st of December: the bleak Midwinter. In our brightly illuminated 21st century world, it can be easy to fall out of sync with the ever changing push and pull of our planet’s cycles of darkness and light, but it is this constant rearrange that is at the heart of so many of our customs and celebrations, the ceremonies of each day. Imagine a time before electricity, and it’s easy to understand the power of these cycles.

Earlier on, Advent began on the 12th of November, the day after Martinmas, and was a time of fasting in the Catholic Church in preparation for Christmas. This is no longer the case, even in the Church, but the idea of preparation, making our homes (and hearts) as fair as we are able, continues. In this house, we are firm believers in the idea that in order to fully appreciate the joy of Christmas, you need to set the stage for needing joy. This is the value of Advent. It doesn’t matter if your approach is a religious one or a secular one. Advent is a good time to do things with care. It’s a good time to make amends. If there are wrongs in your life, it’s a good time to make things right. Approach these darkening nights with this spirit of openness and thanksgiving and your joy at Christmastime, when it arrives, will be great indeed.

Nov 17 2013
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Advent, Thanksgiving

The Slow Christmas Movement

Advent

My neighbor Mr. Solderholm is a grumpy old Swede who can easily muster up a rant over just about anything. A good guy when you get right down to it, but you don’t want to get in his way or cross him, even accidentally. I am nothing like Mr. Solderholm and we both know this and we respect each other’s ways, but if there is one time of year where I sense a bit of Solderholm-style ire creep into my being, it’s usually about now: I find myself grumbling and shaking my fist at houses that are all decked out for Christmas in mid-November, a season for Indian corn and pumpkins, not holly and balsam. I think it’s because I am always championing the little guy, and Thanksgiving, it seems to me, is one of those little guys: an all around nice holiday that gets a bit trampled by the bigger holiday that follows it. I do not, however, want to be as disagreeable as Mr. Solderholm. What I want is to encourage folks to give Thanksgiving its due and to take the rest as it comes.

Today’s installment of the Book of Days is simply an invitation to you all: Join us in what we call “The Slow Christmas Movement.” Rather than rush headlong into Christmas the day after Thanksgiving (or even earlier), we invite you to take your time and appreciate the approach.

What comes after Thanksgiving and before Christmas is Advent: a time of preparation. We prepare our houses, we prepare ourselves––heart, mind, soul––we set the stage for joy to enter at Christmas by making it welcome and appreciating its presence. There are songs for Advent, our favorite being a carol called “People, Look East” that is set to an old French air known as Besançon. These are the lyrics for the first verse:

People, look east. The time is near
Of the crowning of the year.
Make your house fair as you are able,
Trim the hearth and set the table.
People, look east and sing today:
Love, the guest, is on the way.

It may be my instinctual desire for things domestic that makes me like that carol so much. If there was a verse about polishing the copper, I’d be right at home. What that carol speaks of, mostly, is preparing, and I think preparing is an important part of ceremony and celebration… which may be why I like Advent so much.

My grandparents used to get their Christmas tree on Christmas Eve. This is most traditional, and while Seth and I don’t wait quite that long, we are usually visiting our friends at the tree lot quite a bit later than most people. Here’s what you’ll see at our house before the tree arrives: candles in the windows, and an Advent calendar and Advent candles nearby. We light the traditional Advent wreath each of the four Sundays of Advent, we light a daily Advent candle each evening during dinner, and we open a window of our Advent calendar each evening, too. These are slow, simple and meaningful ways to mark the days as we approach the solemnity and the celebration of Christmas… which, of course, begins its own twelve days of celebration.

What’s odd nowadays is that the dominant culture celebrates Christmas before it actually begins, and then shuts things down well before Christmas is over. Old Mr. Solderholm once punched a man in the nose for tossing out his Christmas tree on the 26th of December. Granted, there were some other things going on between them, too, but it was the tree on the curb that instigated the argument that finally pushed Mr. Solderholm over the edge. And while I would never go as far as to punch a man in the nose over anything, there is a part of me that applauded Mr. Solderholm for that act as he stood up to defend the sanctity of old traditions. We may not see eye to eye on most things, he and I, but we do seem to agree on the importance of taking things slowly and respecting the traditions of the ceremonies we keep.

The Slow Christmas Movement means keeping Thanksgiving and keeping it well and keeping Christmas, too, but in its own time. Do so and here’s something else that happens: you almost magically have more time to enjoy everything. Thanksgiving retains its independence, Advent prepares you for “Love, the guest,” and sure, there may still be a frantic rush to the 25th of December… but once it has passed, there are twelve days of Christmas still ahead to celebrate with good food, good company, and good spirit. There is no rush.

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At our website, www.conviviobookworks.com, you’ll find all kinds of traditional German Advent calendars (the ones with lots of glitter you remember from your childhood) as well as British ones, and some very lovely Advent candles, two of which are handmade in England.

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