I went to Hobby Lobby right after school started, to pick up scrapbooking supplies. Want to place a bet on what I found?

Yep, you guessed it. Christmas decorations.

The commercialization of Christmas has always irritated me, because it latches on to one part of the nativity story—the gifts of the Magi, which are really symbols of  Christ’s kingship, divinity and sacrifice—and turned it into a moneymaking machine that swallows the fourth quarter whole. Poor Advent doesn’t stand a chance.

For years, my husband and I tried to observe Advent, using the Jesse Tree and the Advent wreath, only to find that devotions became One More Thing to do instead of a way to grow closer to God. Yet the whole point of Advent is to prepare our hearts for the coming of Christ—not just for the birth of a baby, but for the coming of a King who will judge nations, place the sheep on one side and the goats on the other. Not so photogenic as treasure-laden wise men on bended knee before an adorable infant, but a whole lot more important. Advent is a yearly invitation to examine our hearts and admit the ways in which we’ve failed to follow God. Not quite compatible with the image of a red-velvet clad Santa.

Or is it?

I used to spend the entire month of December feeling angry. Angry with advertisers who try to convince us that money spent equals love. Angry at really bad secular Christmas music playing on the holiday radio station, leaving only a narrow sliver of air time for songs about the season’s namesake. Angry that the holiday itself never lived up to its holy hype. I wanted to feel Christmas, and I never did.

And then, the year my oldest child turned two, my husband looked me in the eye and said, “Honey, you have to make peace with Santa Claus.”

That was the year I started rethinking my assumptions about the holidays. There’s a tendency among Christians to denounce secular culture as hostile to Christianity. And it is—I wouldn’t dream of denying it. The trouble comes when we dismiss out of hand everything that comes from the culture, without testing to see if pieces of it have value.

Take materialism. Greed is bad. No doubt about it. But look at the book of Ecclesiastes. To me, Ecclesiastes is about taking delight in the material world—of enjoying it, glorying in it, but without making it so important that it becomes your identity. In other words, finding a healthy balance.

Things are not inherently evil. Gifts can express love. The beauty of Christmas decorations does feed the soul. Parties and caroling can build community; snowmen and Santa Claus enrich childhood. Even among the non-religious, the month of December is synonymous with generosity toward the less fortunate. In other words, there is much good in the secular celebration of Christmas.

And that was when I realized: maybe I was barking up the wrong tree. Maybe secular Christmas and sacred Advent don’t have to be an either/or proposition.

That year, I reclaimed Advent. In our home, we used the Advent Calendar to organize the busyness of the season—both the sacred and the secular, all the things we had to do and wanted to accomplish. We reserved five minutes at the dinner table every night for the Advent wreath and Jesse tree. We set up a good deeds manger.

Nothing new—just a patchwork of traditions that have been around for centuries. And yet, it revolutionized the season in our home. For the first time in my life, Christmas felt the way it I always thought it should…because for the first time, my soul was ready. Ready, not because I had retreated from the secular culture, but because I had embraced it, allowed it to enrich the sacred journey.

Our Advent Reclamation Project is available to everyone now. This year, will you join me in reclaiming Advent? Not by disowning the culture in which we live, but by integrating it with the faith we live by? Come on over to kathleenbasi.com on Advent Fridays this December. Let’s share what activities we are doing, how our families are reacting, and what insights we gain from our Advent observance.

**

Kathleen Basi’s book, Joy to the World: Advent Activities for Your Family, is available from Liguori Publications. Visit her at www.kathleenbasi.com.

No related posts.