Before Christmas Comes Advent
By the beginning of November, Christmas is already everywhere. The stores have changed their displays, Christmas music is playing, and our calendars are quickly filling with parties, concerts, shopping, and travel. By the time December arrives, it can feel as though Christmas has been going on for weeks.
But the Church gives us another way to enter this time of year. Before Christmas comes Advent, a season with its own meaning, its own practices, and its own necessary place in the Christian life.
Advent, not New Year’s Day, begins the new Church year, and it begins not with the celebration of Christ’s birth but with waiting. For four weeks, the Church asks us to slow down, pay attention, and prepare ourselves for the coming of Christ. We remember Israel’s long wait for the promised Messiah, we prepare to celebrate the mystery of the Incarnation at Christmas, and we look ahead to the day when Christ will come again in glory.
This is part of what makes Advent so important. It is not merely a pleasant lead-up to Christmas or a way to make December feel more meaningful. Advent places us within the whole story of redemption and reminds us that we are still a waiting people. Christ has come, Christ is present among us, and Christ will come again.
The world around us has very little patience for waiting. We are encouraged to move quickly from one thing to the next, to satisfy every desire immediately, and to avoid silence whenever we can. Even Christmas can become something we hurry toward, celebrate too early, and exhaust ourselves trying to create.
Advent resists that hurry. It teaches us that waiting is not wasted time and that preparation is not the same thing as delay. There are things God does in us when we are willing to remain in a season of longing rather than rushing ahead to the celebration.
This is why the Church does not give us all the light at once. We begin with an Advent wreath that is still mostly dark, lighting one candle and then another as Christmas draws near. We hear the words of the prophets. We listen to John the Baptist calling us to repentance. We pray the ancient prayers of the Church and ask God to stir up His power and come among us. These practices help us remember that the Light shines in the darkness and that the darkness has not overcome it.
Observing Advent does not mean that we cannot decorate our homes, attend Christmas parties, or enjoy the many good things that fill this time of year. It means that we make room for something our culture is likely to pass over. We allow Advent to remain Advent, even as Christmas approaches. We leave space for quiet, repentance, longing, and prayer so that our celebration of Christmas can grow out of genuine preparation.
In our home, this has looked different during different seasons of life. Some years we have followed a full set of devotions and traditions, while other years we have managed little more than lighting the Advent candles at dinner. The purpose has never been to create a perfect observance or add another list of things that must be accomplished before Christmas. The purpose is to allow the rhythms of the Church to turn our attention toward Christ.
Over the next several weeks, I will be sharing ways to observe Advent at home through prayer, Scripture, food, feast days, and simple traditions. We will talk about the Advent wreath, St. Nicholas Day, St. Lucy’s Day, the O Antiphons, and other practices Christians have used for generations to prepare for Christmas. You do not need to do all of them. Choose the practices that help your household enter more deeply into the season and let the others go.
If you would like more guidance, I created The Liturgical Home: Advent to help individuals and families walk through the season. The guidebook includes daily devotions and prayers, the history and meaning of Advent traditions, all of the feast days, recipes and activities from around the world, and practical ideas for observing the season in your home. It was designed to give you what you need without making Advent feel like one more thing you have to perform perfectly.
The goal is not to create a more impressive December. It is to become more attentive to the One who came to dwell among us and who has promised to come again.
Christmas will come, with its feasting, light, music, and joy. But we do not have to rush there. First, the Church gives us Advent and invites us to wait, watch, repent, and prepare Him room.
And if you’d like help keeping up with the liturgical year, I’ve created these products -
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