We are waiting for Him

Advent is one of my favorite times of year. With Advent comes the beginning of a new liturgical year. There is a sense of finality from the end of the previous, and much anticipation with this new beginning.

The Lord has been teaching us and refining us over the last few years as to what He would have this season and the Christmas season look like in our home. This year, I had a great desire to make sure that Advent in our home lined up with Advent in the Church. It's not Christmas yet. The Church officially celebrates Christmas for twelve days after Christmas Day (through Epiphany), but usually I'm so sick of looking at the decorations in my own home that they come down a couple of days after Christmas.

So here's what Advent will look like in our house this year:

We are taking a break from school to live the liturgical season (except for math and LOTS of Advent picture books). We are deep cleaning everything over these next few weeks, and praying together that the cleaning and decluttering done in our home is mirroring the same thing going on in our hearts. We are making room for Him to be born in us. The kids got a big kick out of cleaning baseboards yesterday; I could get used to this.

Our tree is up, but it is bare except for our prayer intention chain. No lights, no ornaments, no gifts underneath it. We stopped putting gifts under it a couple of years ago to help our children (and ourselves) remember that Christmas is about giving, not getting. The result was wonderful for them and for us. There was a shift in focus that I didn't even realize that I needed. In the same spirit, we've decided to leave our tree empty. We are waiting for the Light to come. It's such a good visual for us all to look at that empty thing. It's made me think of what it might have been like for Israel to be waiting for the Messiah to come.

I made a chain for the kids to take apart each day until Christmas. There are two weeks of purple links, one week of pink, followed by purple for the last few days of Advent. Each link has a prayer intention that we read during our morning prayer so that we can pray for that person all day.

Morning prayer time is also when we do our Jesse Tree. This is our first year for this, and we are loving it. A few weeks ago, my mom and I spent all weekend hand-crafting felt ornaments for it. We made 32 for Advent, plus 7 more for the O Antiphons (December 17 marks the beginning of the "O" Antiphons, the seven jewels of our liturgy, dating back to the fourth century, one for each day until Christmas Eve. These antiphons address Christ with seven magnificent Messianic titles, based on the Old Testament prophecies and types of Christ. The Church recalls the variety of the ills of man before the coming of the Redeemer. -http://www.catholicculture.org/ ) As a side note, "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" was written based on the O Antiphons. And the monks who arranged them did it such that in Latin, the first letter of each one spells ERO CRAS, meaning "tomorrow, I will come." We are using this book to go along with our Scripture readings for the Jesse Tree. Here's what it will look like on Christmas morning.

At dinner, we use our Advent wreath. The kids are really excited about it this year, likely due to the fact that fire is involved. I loved lighting the Advent wreath when I was a little girl. As an adult, I love the symbolism of it.

Taken from Jessica:

"The round shape stands for God's eternity. Like God, it has no beginning and no end.

The greens used to make the wreath are EVERgreen, and therefore unchanging, just like God.

The four candles symbolize the four centuries that man waited for the coming of our Savior.

Three of the candles are purple since Advent is a time of penance. It was because of our sinfulness that we needed a Savior, and so we must prepare ourselves through sacrifice and penance during Advent for Christ's coming at Christmas. However, we know that Christ HAS and IS coming again, and so our penance is a joyful one! We are joyfully anticipating and preparing ourselves for the celebration of Christmas, as well as Christ's second coming. Therefore, one candle is pink to represent our joy.

On the first Sunday of Advent we light one purple candle. On the second Sunday of Advent, two purple candles are lit. On the third Sunday of Advent, which is called "Gaudete Sunday", we light the pink candle since "Gaudete" means "let us rejoice!" And then, on the fourth (and final) Sunday of Advent, all four candles are lit. The gradual lighting of the candles is a visible sign for us. We can see the light growing brighter the closer we get to birth of Christ, who IS the light of the world!"

I downloaded this amazing album from itunes last weekend. Heather wrote about it last year, and I never got around to buying it. Now I wish that I had. It's beautiful and moving. Like the empty, dark tree, it makes me stop and think about a time before a Savior. I cannot even begin to fathom it. And I am overcome with gratitude that God had a forever plan to save us; I'm overcome with thanksgiving for the Baby who came to do the most loving and most horrific act that would guarantee our salvation.

In addition to all of the above daily things, we also celebrate a few feast days in Advent.

On December 6th, we celebrate the feast of St. Nicholas. We will read lots of books, including The Miracle of St. Nicholas, The Real Santa Claus, and The Legend of St. Nicholas. Our children know that Santa Claus as seen in the malls, etc., is not real. They know that he does not come down chimneys on Christmas Eve. But we love teaching them about the saints! So, they will each get a new pair of slippers filled with chocolate gold coins on St. Nicholas' feast. We will have a quick craft later in the day with hot chocolate and candy cane stirrers. Colleen beautifully describes the why behind this feast here.

December 9th is the feast of St. Juan Diego and December 12th is the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The story of Juan Diego can be found here. This is the first year we really do these feasts in a big way. Some friends of ours are hosting a Mexican fiesta on the 12th to celebrate. The kids will watch Juan Diego: Messenger of Guadalupe, make a really cool craft, and we will feast with wonderful friends.

The next day, the 13th, is the feast of St. Lucy. This is the first year we do this also. December 13th was my great-grandmother's birthday, and her middle name was Lucy. In Sweden, the tradition is for the oldest daughter to dress in white and wear a wreath with lit candles (or painted!) and serve the family a hot beverage and sweet rolls in bed. Now, the in bed part won't happen because I would go ballistic about it, I'm sure, but I'm working on a wreath and we'll be doing the cinnamon rolls and coffee for breakfast. We'll read this book. Because the name Lucy means "light," in many countries in Europe, St. Lucy's feast is when the lights are turned on for the Christmas season. We will turn on the lights in our Dicken's village houses that day as well.

I'm hoping that the housework can be complete by the end of the third week of Advent so that our final few days are spent baking and reading more and more.

I want to impress upon my children's hearts that we are celebrating the beginning of our salvation...that there was a time when there was no hope, only the promise of it. And I want to learn from them...lessons of child like faith and trust, lessons about giving of ourselves and of wanting to share all that we have. I want to create lots of memories for them and for us. Mostly, I want to honor the Lord in our planning and preparation. I pray for many blessed days ahead, and for Him to be born in us again and again as we celebrate.

As a final thought, here's a picture of my grandparents' "mountain". They've done this instead of a tree since I was about 8 or so. I still can't wait to see it each year.