Advent is coming! Now that we live in the Great White North it is very tempting to deck the halls with Christmas joy right when December 1st hits.
But we wait.
Advent is a season in of itself and it's worth the wait to let Advent do its work. Here's what we do before the joyous day of Christmas arrives!
Advent Wreath and Advent Decorating
On the first Sunday of Advent we put up our Advent wreath, greenery decorations, lights, and hang stockings.
This will be our first year getting a full size Christmas tree! While we'll probably get the tree in early December, I like the idea of not decorating it with ornaments until Gaudete Sunday. The Advent and Christmas seasons are a marathon - best to pace ourselves!
St. Nicholas (December 6th)
Our first Big Deal feast of Winter!
I grew up with the German style tradition of St. Nick filling stockings instead of shoes. I have a whole post on what we put in those stockings and how we celebrate the day.
St. Lucia (December 13th)
Like all good 90s girls, I was introduced to St. Lucia celebrations via American Girl books. This year Therese is finally big enough to play St. Lucia so maybe we'll add in more of the procession this year! Here's what the celebrations looked like last year.
Marian Feasts - Our Lady of Guadalupe (December 12th) and Immaculate Conception (December 8th)
There might be a lot of feasts in the month of December, but it would never do to forget mother Mary! I don't do anything too big for these feasts, but they are still celebrated.Our Lady of Guadalupe is patroness of the pro-life movement. We watch the CCC Juan Diego movie and offer a rosary for life.
Immaculate Conception is actually for the conception of Mary, not the conception of Jesus (common mistake). It's also the patron feast day for the United States, and a solemnity. So get thee to mass, pray for the country, and have some sort of white dessert. Boom. Celebrated!
Ember Days - Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday of the 3rd Week of Advent
Those final days of preparation before settling into the welcoming of Christmas! I love Ember Days, but if you've never heard of them you're in good company. They are 3 days toward the beginning of each liturgical season set aside for fasting and prayer and to "to thank God for the gifts of nature, to teach men to make use of them in moderation, and to assist the needy." It contains the cleaning and preparing and forces me to stop and enjoy the fruits of our preparations! Read more about them here.
The beauty of letting Advent be Advent is we get to go all out through the whole Christmas season! This is the first year we will not be traveling to family for Christmas, and I'm planning an epic 12 day celebration. More on that later!
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Want more ideas? Check out other Advent posts on this month's CWBN Blog Hop!
I love your phrasing of simply letting Advent be Advent. I recently wrote a post about slow childhoods... letting kids be kids. We are so eager to rush them through each milestone, missing the beauty of where they are now.
ReplyDeleteThis feels the same with Advent... we are culturally so quick to want to enjoy the magic of Christmas, that we rush through Advent and totally miss out on it being an entire wonderful, albeit different, season in itself!
And such a short season this year too! Really we only have 3 weeks of Advent this year, and I feel like we should be able to hold in the Christmas hoopla for that long!
DeleteWow! I've never heard of Ember days before but I loved learning about them. So awesome and such an excellent way to prepare for Christmas
ReplyDeleteThey were new to me just a few years ago, but don't they just make so much sense?! If I use the Ember Days to time my big house cleanings, then things don't get too far gone and I'm always ready for the next big liturgical season. Sometimes the tradition is ingenious.
DeleteI love the idea of Ember days and a "Liturgical reset button!" Thank you for the reminder to wait and relish in the season of Advent.
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