It’s Not Christmas Yet 

Are you tired of Christmas yet? The Santa Claus Parades are over.  I haven’t been in a mall for some time but I’m sure that Christmas music has been playing for quite some time now.  Outside Christmas decorations have sprouted up around her and I’m sure in your neighbourhood.  Christmas ads have been playing on TV and social media - I think the earliest one I saw this year weas right after Thanksgiving (which for the non-Canadian readers is the second Monday in October – not November).

  

I know it is pretty much a lost cause but it calls out for an establishment of a secular Advent just as there is now a firmly entrenched secular Christmas season.  Advent is a time of preparation for Christmas which, believe it or not, does not end at midnight on December 25th.  The Christmas season in the church year goes from December 25th to Epiphany when the Wise Men (they were not kings) arrive at the stable in Bethlehem to worship the newborn King of the Jews.

 

It is a time of preparation for Christmas.  Here is a reflection on preparation form the Society of St. John the Evangelist:

Preparation

Gazing not at Christ’s first coming in our midst, but straining toward the horizon for his second coming, we enter into this season of preparation. But Advent preparation is not just about planning a party towards the end of December. The expectant waiting and preparation of Advent is time to do the soul’s work of conditioning for ultimate things, because eternity is on the horizon. Br. Todd Blackham, SSJE

 

To help you prepare one good way is to listen to an Advent Carol rather than a Christmas carol.  Here is one of Lorna my favourites with a link: O Come O Come Emmanuel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xtpJ4Q_Q-4.

 

May you have a blessed Advent on your journey to Christmas.