advent – Life In A Word

It’s Thanksgiving Season (#1)

Listen carefully… hear the clock a-tick-tick-ticking? Better hurry up! You’re already a day (or more) into the Thanksgiving season and you have so much to do! “No Dave”, you correct me, “Thanksgiving’s just one day (or at most a long weekend) way-ay-ay at the end of the month… I still have plenty of time to prepare!” No you don’t. Junk that perception, online friends, because the times they are a-changin’. I, blogger Dave, hereby decree Thanksgiving to be three weeks… and the season’s already underway. So c’mon – get grateful already!

It’s fitting I’m writing this post on Halloween, “… the conclusion of spooky season…” as Lyssy in the City referred to it. And isn’t it true? Just like Christmas, the air goes out of the holiday balloon the very next day. Cinderella’s carriage turns back into a pumpkin at midnight (ironically). There is no “residual” spooky season on November 1st. Halloween died the night before.

Retailers are determined to steamroll Halloween and Thanksgiving with the Christmas season, of course. The artificial trees and decorations were available for purchase at Costco and Lowes this year before the Halloween candy even colored the shelves. As I said in Third-Wheel Meal two years ago, Thanksgiving is fighting an uphill battle between the ever-expanding seasons before and after. It’s like a sandwich with two massive pieces of bread but not much in between.

Thanksgiving is not just another holiday in my book; it’s a uniquely American holiday. It’s the one we’ve been celebrating in the U.S. for 160 years thanks to the persistence of one Sarah Josepha Hale (who also wrote “Mary Had a Little Lamb”). Hale, along with Abraham Lincoln’s stroke of the presidential pen, made sure the holiday was “permanent… an American custom and institution”. Gives this juncture in the holiday season a little more respect, wouldn’t you say?

Like an Advent calendar, I propose we take twenty-three days to be grateful for what we have. Open the little cardboard door on any given morning of November and the question will always be the same: What are you thankful for today? Surely you can come up with twenty-three things. Or how about twenty-three people? Wouldn’t it be something if you told one person how grateful you are to have them in your life… every day until Thanksgiving Day?

As with Christmas, it’s not the wrapping; it’s the gift inside. Thanksgiving goes way deeper than turkey and football. If you’re planning a trip to America and don’t know much about Thanksgiving, VisitTheUsa.com is not helping my cause. The website reduces Thanksgiving into turkey and pie, Turkey Trots, parades, football, the pardoning of a single turkey, “shop ’til you drop”, and the travel challenges of a four-day weekend. Really? That’s the meaning of America’s Thanksgiving?

Maybe it would help if moviemakers and songwriters joined my cause. I mean, think about it. Halloween movies come to mind without much thought (with some, like A Nightmare on Elm Street, approaching ten sequels). Hallmark churns out Christmas movies faster than you churn out Christmas cookies. But are there any movies about Thanksgiving? Well, yes actually, just this year we have Thanksgiving (the movie). But please, don’t seek out the trailer. This garbage has nothing to do with gratitude and everything to do with gratuitous violence.

I was going to make the same case for music. Halloween has you dancing to “Thriller” and “Monster Mash”. Christmas has you “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree”. There is no “Thanksgiving carol”. But then I remembered Amy Grant’s “‘Til the Season Comes ‘Round Again” (my wife’s favorite). It’s a song about Christmas, make no mistake, but you could argue there’s a little Thanksgiving dressing mixed into the first verse:

Come and gather around at the table
In the spirit of family and friends
And we’ll all join hands and remember this moment
‘Til the season comes ’round again

Get what I’m saying? Take the next three weeks and find the true meaning of Thanksgiving. Like Halloween, the treats will still be there on November 23rd. Like Christmas, you’ll still have the stress of travel and getting things done. Those holidays are about finding your inner child. This one’s about finding your inner adult. So c’mon – get grateful already!

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

It’s Been a Silent Night

When singer Amy Grant released “Tennessee Christmas” in 2016 it’d been years since she recorded a holiday collection. In fact, her platinum-level “A Christmas Album” arrived way back in 1983; her triple-platinum “Home for Christmas” in 1992. “Tennessee Christmas” didn’t achieve platinum, gold, or anything else for that matter. As my brother said at the time, “She never should’ve done it.” He’s right. Amy should’ve released just “I Need a Silent Night” and called it good.

Amy Grant can still pen lyrics (even if her voice isn’t as strong as it used to be). “I Need a Silent Night” asks us to find the true meaning of Christmas in the midst of the inevitable commercial distractions. Instead of “December traffic” and “Christmas rush” and “Shopping and buying and standing forever in line”, Amy asks:

I need a silent night, a holy night
To hear an angel voice through the chaos and the noise
I need a midnight clear, a little peace right here
To end this crazy day with a silent night

As if we’ve been granted Amy’s wish (ha), this season has been remarkably placid. The message of Advent is always “prepare” and that’s what we’re doing. It’s just – unlike most years – we’re not using words like “rush” and “chaos”. We’re experiencing more of a “silent night” instead.

Our Christmas prep never begins until after Thanksgiving (I stand on holiday principles here) but by the following Saturday I was eagerly unpacking the decorations and streaming holiday tunes. More importantly, I also found myself saying “yes” to just about every reason for the season:

Since we can’t have in-person services our church offered Advent wreaths to build and display in whatever room you “go to church” in at home. We asked for a wreath as soon as they were available.
A family involved in our local 4-H advertised festive bags of scented pine cones as a fundraiser for their activities. We bought two bags and they delivered them straight to our door. There’s nothing that says “Christmas” like the tiny voice of a five-year-old saying, “Thank you, Mr. Wilson!”
Our church set up a virtual giving tree where you can pick presents from a list, buy them, and return them to the church for distribution to needy families. I bought six.
We’ve been baking up a kitchen storm so we decided to put together plates of cookies for our neighbors and deliver them. Front doors were opened cautiously, to which we said, “Well, this may be the only chance we get to see you face-to-face this year. Merry Christmas!”
We’ll be having drive-in Christmas Eve services this year so our church put out a big bin of ornaments, asking us to decorate them and put them on trees surrounding the parking lot. I grabbed several.
Starbucks moves to Christmas drinks and goodies shortly after Halloween. There’s this unspoken opportunity to “pay it backwards” by taking care of the car behind you in the drive-thru, and then speeding off to remain anonymous. I’ve been doing this for weeks.
Colorado Springs advertises a Christmas For Kids effort where you’re assigned a needy child’s Christmas list. You buy the gifts, wrap them up, and pass them on to case workers who make sure the kids get them in time for Christmas. I sponsored two.

Most of these Christmastime gestures (and why should they only happen at Christmas, right?) would not find room in our “normal years”. We’d be rushing about trying to find one last gift, throwing up Christmas lights and decorations, and hastily preparing our cards to put in the mail. We’d be wrapping presents ’til well past midnight on Christmas Eve. Yet this year we’re completely organized and ready, including all those meaningful extras I mentioned above.

Let me “wrap” (ha) with one more holiday task we completed earlier than usual: decorating our tree. Christmas trees must’ve been in high demand (or short supply) this year because our local lot only had one left in the 10′-12′ range we prefer. It’s tall and thin (kind of like you see in Whoville in the original “Grinch” movie). It’s so tall our angel at the top seems poised in the heavens, which is wonderfully appropriate this year. She was the only decor on the tree all of last Sunday before we added everything else the following night. So now our tree boasts the usual organized chaos of lights and ornaments. But it’s only the angel I see. She’s watching over us and giving us exactly what we need this year: a silent night, a holy night.

This post is in memory of Marion.

The Twenty-four Days of Christmas

The Christmas season seems to begin a little earlier each year. Stores decorate and start their sales around Halloween. Lights go up on houses well before Thanksgiving, while Christmas cards show up in mailboxes by Black Friday. The longer the season though, the more abrupt the conclusion. Be honest; who among us sings Christmas carols (or watches Hallmark movies) on December 26th? Not many. We worry and scurry for weeks about a single day – then suddenly it’s over. Here’s a better approach. Let’s focus instead on the one, true Christmas season preceding the day. Let’s focus on Advent.

For most Christians, Advent refers to the twenty-four days before Christmas (not to be confused with the song-famous Twelve Days, which come after Christmas). Advent begins four Sundays before December 25th. The word literally means “coming”, as in the (first coming) birth of Jesus at Christmas, and the (second coming) reappearance of Jesus at the end of time. If you’re looking for the season’s theme song, go with “O Come, O Come Emmanuel”. It’s the one, true Advent carol.

Once upon a time Advent included fasting, penance, and daily prayer, but today the season seems to be nothing more than a countdown. Even in Sunday church services, the four candles of the Advent wreath are lit as the four Sundays pass by – a weekly countdown to the Christmas candle in the center. Here’s a more efficient idea. Let’s add another ball in Times Square; one that takes twenty-four days to drop instead of sixty seconds. Might save a lot of wreaths and calendars.

Speaking of calendars, maybe a countdown is enough to signify a season. Advent calendars are all the rage these days. I had one when I was a kid; the flat, cardboard kind with twenty-four numbered doors of varying shapes and sizes. Oddly, the doors were never arranged numerically, as if the calendar was made more appealing by having to search for a given day. Not so oddly, each door fronted a bit of chocolate. As if waiting twenty-four days for Christmas wasn’t hard enough, Advent calendars forced a kid to wait twenty-four hours to “open” each piece of chocolate. A test of patience.

If cardboard and chocolate don’t catch your attention, perhaps you’d prefer a more elaborate version of an Advent calendar. Consider Fran’s Chocolates of Seattle (above left), which produces its annual calendar fronted by an original watercolor. Add in twenty-four delectable chocolates in twenty-four drawers, and this calendar sets you back $175. Or how about Liberty London’s “Beauty Advent Calendar” (above right), which includes twenty-four wellness products – many of them full-size – like probiotic deodorant, essential oil candles, and skin bronzer? This one sets you back $275, with the price justification you can re-gift whatever items are not to your taste.

Lest you think a fancy (or not) calendar is the only way to acknowledge Advent, I can’t close without mentioning the Christingle. I don’t remember creating one of these as a kid. A Christingle is made up of an orange, a candle, a bit of red ribbon, and four sets of dried fruits or sweets, skewered on cocktail sticks. It’s a strange-looking assembly, but the Christingle gets an “A” for symbolism. The orange represents the world. The candle represents Jesus as the light of the world. The red ribbon represents God’s love (or Jesus’ blood). The fruits/sweets represent the gifts God gives us, and the cocktails sticks represent the four corners of the globe. Lots going on in one sort-of-neat package.

Austria may lay claim to the biggest Advent calendar in the world!

If you’re reading this post before December 1st, you have the entire twenty-four days of Advent ahead of you. Twenty-four days to slow down and appreciate the meaning of day twenty-five. Sounds more like a season than a single day, doesn’t it? Mark your calendar then. Advent is here.

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.