Thursday was all prepared. We had the turkey, the potatoes, the stuffing, the dinner rolls, a pie given from a friend, and green beans amandine. My kids had all come down with a stomach flu this week, but were slowly recovering. With my mom and dad visiting from Canada, our house was full of anticipation for the week of holiday celebrations and preparations to enjoy together. One day was down with several of the kids sick, but there was hope that all would be well. Around noon, while the kids and I were working on a puzzle, the nausea I had already experienced only grew. Alas, I missed the whole Thanksgiving dinner.
Friday was the day we would head out into the woods to chop down our $5 Christmas tree, a new tradition we absolutely love to do together. We bring hot cocoa in a thermos and enjoy the sips in the frosty snow-laden forest. If there’s enough snow, there’s sledding too. Its one of our favorite ways to celebrate as Thanksgiving feasts give way to Advent preparation. Alas, another cancellation due to this unanticipated illness.
In the hours of quiet, tucked away in my room, while the house was aflutter with happy voices and delicious smells, I was grateful and prayerful. My mother kept reminding me that there is a reason for all of this, pointing my heart to trust God, and she is a woman who has learned to trust God.
Traditions and holidays are a joyful and creative way for us to celebrate the meaningful events of our faith. But these things are also not meant to become forms of idolatry. When plans change and expectations are unmet, we can throw our hands in the air or we can choose watchfulness. In the many hours of rest and recovery, I was able to think (between waking and falling asleep again) plans for celebrating the season of Advent at home with our family.
We’ve been keeping the season of Advent ever since our kids were babies. Through the years, we added various traditions, homemade crafts, advent wreaths, homemade ornaments, festive activities, several devotional style readings, and of course our favorite chocolates. This year, the Lord led me to some new resources to add to our collection. And while the advent season, or Christmas, or Easter, are not commanded by our Lord to observe, as He is all-sufficient and He indwells His people, still the rhythms of remembering help us to intentionally interact with the events of our faith and renew our hope and focus for His second coming.
I have been greatly inspired by this list of advent resources and am eagerly awaiting a few of these items to arrive in the mail. To be sure, none of our traditions are necessary, only Christ is necessary and fully able to satisfy our souls. But I look forward to the generosity of these sub-creators who have used their artistic and literary gifts bestowed on them from above to help our minds and souls engage with the stories of our faith, the meta-narrative of Scripture, the timeline of redemptive history. In keeping Advent, we are practicing remembering.
In the quiet of Saturday morning, with enough strength to brave the tree nursery down the road, my dad and I took my kids, while my mom and husband were the next to catch the virus. We picked out the Christmas tree and poinsettia, decorated the tree with Vince Guaraldi’s Charlie Brown Christmas playing in the background. I prepared the mantel with clippings from the bottom of the tree, some acorns, and an old white window frame given to us years ago which I rediscovered in our garage storage room. I also had managed to dehydrate some sliced orange pieces I wanted to use to decorate our tree.
My dad was sitting in the chair nearest the tree, and I asked him if he was watching the game or reading, and he said quietly, “I’m just reading in 1 Corinthians.” My pastor-father, meeting with the Word made flesh, in the quiet of the early afternoon. I sat beside him and threaded my dried orange slices. We listened quietly to the mid-winter carols that would accompany my family through the watchful season. It was the beginning of Advent.