Christmas. It is my favourite holiday. Always has been and I am certain always will be. I love everything about Christmas, true Christmas that is. Not the marketed Christmas that is nothing more than empty, ugly consumerism. Yet even in my love for Christmas, I can not say that every year I feel the famous “Christmas spirit.” But whether I “feel” it or not, I intentionally find ways of welcoming, embracing and celebrating Christmas.

For those of us in the northern hemisphere at least, it comes at the deepest dark time of winter, when summer is nothing but a distant memory and spring feels like an even more distant hope. It comes with twinkling lights, bright reds and greens, beautiful traditional songs packed to overflowing with miraculous truth and hope. It brings a renewed energy that the dark mornings have been slowly sapping from our bodies and a gentle hum of excitement and anticipation in the midst of the muffled quiet of busy focus on work and life. Christmas, with all its cheerful lights and joyful colour, lifts our distracted gaze from the droll routine of daily life and struggles and the darkness and chaos in the world around us and reminds us that there is yet hope and light, there is joy and peace to be found in it all.

If we let it.

And for me, this is what Advent is about. Advent is about us allowing the approach of Christmas to lift our gaze, to interrupt our busy lives and cause us to pause, to reflect more deeply and to wonder once again.

I have not always been very good at engaging with Advent at a deeper level. More often that not, this season means my life has been busy to the extreme, every waking moment packed with all the usual things of daily life and work, as well as all the Christmas programs, outreaches and carol services the church initiates and all the various Christmas parties and functions, some fun, most obligatory. The sense of pressure and guilt to be involved with and at everything escalates and I find myself counting down the hours until I get to finally retreat from all the rush and demands. Eager anticipation of joyful celebration is replaced by desperate anticipation of space to simply draw a breath. And the much-looked forward to time with family ends up looking like me on the sofa, coughing and spluttering and feeling like anything but celebratory and social as my body takes the opportunity to stop fighting and crash.

I have begun to rebel against this sadly all too common way of “keeping Christmas” that is so prevalent in both the world and the Church. And this year I am intentionally engaging with Advent more deeply than ever before. I want to be interrupted by Christmas, I yearn for my gaze to be lifted from the limited view I have of the world around me to the Great Hope that this season represents. And I want to partner with God in sharing that hope, like the angels and the shepherds of the Christmas Story.

One way I am doing this is through my homemade Advent calendar, which is a simple little paper and wire tree with handmade envelopes hanging from its branches. In each envelope is an individual for me to pray for and send an encouraging text to, as well as a few different acts of kindness.

I am also each morning reading the daily Advent devotions by Walter Brueggemann called Celebrating Abundance.

And of course each day I will watch the 24-7 Prayer Advent video podcasts Selah Series III.

I am worrying less about what I’m “doing” but am watching and listening to Holy Spirit, going only where He invites me to follow, allowing His voice, His invitations to take precedence over all others.

But the main way in which I am engaging with Advent is less about external actions and more about an internal posturing of my heart and especially the ears of my heart. I am quietly pausing, turning the ear of my heart towards His heart to better catch the gentle whispers that renew life and ignite fresh hope, impart wisdom and release wonder, and prepare my entire being for the newness that inevitably comes through the Word that became flesh.

I will let Walter Bruggemann finish off my thoughts here: ‘Advent is is not the kind of “preparation” that involves shopping and parties and cards. Such illusions of abundance disguise the true cravings of our weary souls. Advent is preparation for the demands of newness that will break the tired patterns of fear in our lives.’

One of my ways of observing Advent this year is to write some reflections on Advent each week. So I will hopefully see you right here again next week.