This year, Christmas arrived before winter did. Retail stores began selling Christmas decorations before Halloween was in the rear view mirror. Black Friday and Cyber Monday emails drowned out any important messages we might have received over the past few days. It’s already overwhelming. And it’s just begun.
Today, it seems that Christmas has become watered down like weak tea, warm water in a ceramic cup without the usual cinnamon and nutmeg flavor. It doesn’t help that Christmas crafting begins in July at many hobby stores, filling the shelves with reminders that Christmas is only six months away and you need to start now.
Shopping, shopping, shopping, and what are we truly giving our children and grandchildren that have everything? How can we truly appreciate these final days of the year and experience fully the anticipation of Christ’s birth amidst all the excitement of shopping and concerts? Again, I ask, “Aren’t we forgetting something?”
Christmas begins with Advent. Advent is the season of preparation for the reason we celebrate Christmas.
To remind our congregation, our church kicks off the season of Advent with a family fun night. We make Advent wreaths, decorate cookies, and grab a free devotional booklet as we exit the church.
The next day, we are back at work or school and filling in our calendars with vendor shows and visits from Santa, making wonderful memories with our families and friends.
The days leading up to Christmas were much quieter than they are now. Winter’s cold, clothed in hours of darkness, seemed peaceful and not at all disruptive to our schedules. We went about our lives, anticipating the week school dismissed, and we could snoop around the house looking for presents.
Waiting for Christmas Eve, a silent night. That evening made the greatest impression on my memory.
I don’t recall that we had a traditional dinner. I don’t recall that we had dinner at all. We so wanted to open Christmas gifts, however meager the offerings under the tree were. There were only one or two gifts for each of us, but it was all good. The special wrapping paper and colorful ribbons were as much anticipated as the gift itself. And, like most families in those days, we saved the paper. As young children, we learned early how to carefully remove the scotch tape to preserve as much wrapping paper as possible. Some of us still cringe at the thought of all the good boxes, bags, paper, and ribbons that go into the trash on December 26
Back then, we never opened gifts until after church, and the reason for the season.
We walked to Martin Luther Lutheran Church, about a block away from our home in Fredonia.
I’m sure we wore new dresses, and maybe new shoes even though the trip required walking in whatever snow had fallen prior to the end of December.
We walked to church as a family on the snow-covered gravel road because back then, small towns had few sidewalks. I followed behind my mother, observing how her feet made a funny impression in the snow. The pointy triangle impression looked like an oversized guitar pick punctuated by the dot of a slender high heel. When we arrived at the church, those lovely high heel shoes clicked on the concrete landing leading up the stairs to the entrance. What a wonderful sound echoing in the cold sharp night air.
Brushing off snow and stamping off feet, the church was lit with the warm yellow light of candles. The sanctuary was old and ornate, not like the smooth square lines of churches today. There were wooden polished pews and the pulpit held some authority in its position of power elevated from the altar area.
The littlest children of the congregation reenacted the nativity and dutifully recited their piece for proud parents. The play was followed by Silent Night, or rather “Stille Nacht,” in candlelight. The slender white candles were slipped through an X in a round paper holder, and no one, but the very young, was denied the opportunity to carry the light of the Lord. It was the grand finale to a month of preparation for this sacred of all nights.
Exiting the church into the silent night, each child was handed a bag full of nuts topped with fruit and a few small candies. The ribbon candy came with peanut tissue stuck to it, but we ate it anyway.
There was nothing out of the ordinary in that bag, outside of the “gift” of love it contained.
Today, it’s difficult for me to find the feeling of that small brown sack amongst the piles of ribbon and paper and countless dinners and parties and eating and drinking and multiple family obligations.
It’s not that all the gifts and concerts and parties aren’t appreciated, but how can anyone absorb all that without losing sight of the reason for the season? How can we anticipate when we are inundated with more stuff? What are you doing to anticipate the real reason?
Our family is not exempt. There are so many Christmas gatherings this year that we had our first mini Christmas gift exchange on Thanksgiving to accommodate everyone’s schedules.
It’s going to be a scaled-down Christmas at my house due to circumstances beyond my control. My decorations are packed and stored in anticipation of a move, and I won’t be hosting a Christmas dinner relying solely on invitations from my children and brother.
They aren’t forgetting about me, though. My son’s family picked the perfect pre-Christmas gift for me. An Advent jig-saw puzzle. It has 24 squares, one to do each day leading up to Christmas. In the end, I will have completed a 1,008-piece puzzle by Christmas Day. It’s so much fun, and I anticipate each day’s winter scenes of deer, snowmen, Santa, trees, and candy. I’m trying to resist the urge to do more than one a day. I am anticipating.
In addition to the puzzle, I selected a devotion for this period of preparation titled “52 Little Lessons from ‘It’s a Wonderful Life.’”
I love the movie, “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Watching it has become something I anticipate every year, while at the same time remembering what Christmas used to be like as a child, full of anticipation, waiting, family, and peace. There was never a December 24th that we did not make the obligatory trip to visit our grandparents to feast and visit with our many cousins.
It may not be your typical devotional, but it’s a simple reminder of the really important things in life. I will be sharing a bit from those pages over the next few weeks as I anticipate the CHILD.
INDYchildrendotme 
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