The beginning

I really do love Christmas. While the commercialism gets to me (as it does to everyone I think), I still love the rituals surrounding the season. I think that might be because while the secular aspects of Christmas are widespread, the celebration of Advent itself remains a uniquely Christian thing. It must be part of my almost-Catholic leanings, but lighting the candles each evening gives me a moment of quiet…a sense of the sacred mystery that comes with Advent. Light coming into darkness.

We started observing Advent with the wreath last year, and it really helped to remind me where my focus should be. I definitely get over-involved in cards, decorations and gifts.

This year I decided to go more traditional with the candles for our wreath. I had to do some searching, since it turned out to be more difficult than I thought to find several purple candles that would be large enough to last until Epiphany. The purple symbolizes repentance, but each of the candles have a different meaning. Today on the first Sunday, it is Hope. Our fourth candle is pink to represent Joy. While traditionally the Christ candle (the middle one) is white, I decided to go ahead and use ours from last year because I like that continuity.

This is definitely one of those traditions that I started “for the dutchkid”, but now I do it for me. In the midst of the holiday scramble, I hope you find some moments of peace and reflection this Advent season.

Epiphany

Tonight we will light our advent candles for the last time. It is the 12th day of Christmas today! (12 drummers drumming, anyone?) The day where tradition holds that the Magi reached Bethlehem to worship the newborn King.

In keeping with the three kings’ travels, our advent wreath also did some traveling this season. My dh grumbled a bit about that in terms of trunk space, but I was glad we did. I wish I could say that we lit the candles every day, but even just a few times a week helped give me a sense of having a constant. And a few minutes of quiet during dinner to really bring our focus back to why we celebrate Christmas. Which was priceless in the middle of all the driving, packing, unpacking, shopping and general mania that came with the holidays.

This is the first year we have ever really observed advent. I remember as a kid the advent readings and candles at our church. Now as an adult, dh and I tend to gravitate towards very contemporary churches and they don’t really observe advent in that traditional way. I used a little book called Before and After Christmas by Debbie Trafton O’Neal, which has lots of neat crafts and things in it that will keep us busy for many Christmases to come. It does have something brief with scripture you can read each day, although next year I might look for a different devotional to use. I think this is definitely a tradition I would like to keep, if only for my own sanity.

For the first time in years, I may actually be a little sad that Christmas is over. But not to worry, Easter is right around the corner.