The holiday season is fast approaching. Some of us view its coming with joyful anticipation. Others not so much.

When I was a child, Christmas was the best of times. My parents were ministers of the very keen variety. Weeks leading up to the big day were full of choir practices, concerts, the annual pageant, and building our float to enter in the town’s Christmas parade. Christmas Eve was a sleepover at my grandparents house with all my cousins, stuffed stockings, and presents under their tree on Christmas morning.  On New Year’s Eve our church would hold all night parties (to keep us out of trouble). We’d go midnight tobogganing or rent a local skating rink and my parents would cook us all a pancake breakfast at sunrise.

I tried to recapture the magic with my own kids. But I’m not my mother and my husband was not my father. I don’t like to cook and Rick was a terrible Christmas shopper. Every year I’d give him my wish list but when I looked under my tree there was nothing my heart desired. When I asked why he never bought me what I wanted, he said it was no fun for him if I told him what to buy. And he wanted to surprise me. I’m not sure why he valued my surprise over my delight. But the message I got was that his pleasure in present buying was more important than my pleasure in present receiving.

Eventually we stopped attending church completely. My doubts in the old stories turned to conviction that the whole Christmas story, while lovely, was a fiction. Like The Christmas Carol or the Little Match Girl. Our once close family ties loosened. My husband and I divorced. My brothers married and had children and grandchildren of their own. The elders passed away or move into long term care.

My grown sons are indifferent to the season. One of them lives on the east coast and hasn’t been able to make it home the past couple of years. It ends up with just me and my youngest son to cobble together a Christmas dinner. The big feast is at his aunt’s house with his father and cousins and their little ones. I can’t count on a Christmas gift from either, though every now and then they surprise me with something very sweet. Like the year they went in on a beautiful watch engraved “with love and togetherness”.

Alone for the most part, I’ve accepted invitations from friends to join them in their celebrations. Attended pageants and carol nights at churches where I’m not a member. But the feeling of belonging escapes me. I end up feeling lonely and sad. Bereft really, if that is not too dramatic a word for the circumstances.

Lonely and sad are no way to feel at any time of year, let alone the holidays. So, like Charlie Brown, I’m on a quest to imbue the season with meaning once again. Beginning at the beginning of the season, I have decided to co-opt Advent and remake it for myself.

Re-Imagining Advent

Advent is a season of anticipation, of expectant waiting. Mary is awaiting the birth of the promised Messiah. I like to imagine myself pregnant with possibilities for the New Year.

It is celebrated the four Sundays leading up to Christmas Day with the lighting of candles representing the four Advent virtues of Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love. The season concludes on Christmas Day with the lighting of the Christ Candle to celebrate the arrival of the promised one.

My re-imagined Advent tradition retains the spirit of expectancy for what is to come, the Advent candles and their associated virtues. Our season begins on the first Sunday of the traditional Advent and stretches to the New Year on January 1st when we shift from the energy of anticipation and welcome what it is we have decided to give birth to in the coming year.

If you, like me, are looking for ways to imbue the Holiday season with meaning again I invite you to join me in this re-imaged Advent celebration.

I’ve prepared a series of Advent packages to go out to you on December 1,8,15 and 22 – and on New Year’s Day.

In the midst of the hustle and bustle of this holiday season, I invite you to take some time out for yourself. To be quiet, reflect on what’s important, and set some intentions for the New Year. It’s a wonderful ritual to ground yourself in the whirlwind. To make the holidays meaningful again.

Yours in the spirit of the season,

Darlene