Garrison Kiellor said in a recent "News from Lake Wobegon" that the Episcopalians have ADD - Advent Denial Disorder. He means (and he's right) that Episcopalians want Advent to be Advent, not Christmas, and therefore we pretend like the Christmas rush everywhere around us isn't really happening.
Advent is the season of the church year that begins at the end of November and includes the four Sundays before Christmas day. During the season of Advent, we do not sing Christmas carols in church - we sing Advent carols which are fairly formal and quite Anglican. We don't put up lights or decorations until Christmas eve. So unlike the rest of the country, which has been celebrating Christmas for weeks (or in the case of retailers - have been pushing Christmas since October or even late September) we stubbornly struggle to remain in Advent - insisting that it's a quiet season of preparation and anticipation. We tend to look down our noses at those who put up their Christmas trees right after Thanksgiving. Don't they know it's not Christmas yet? But, as Garrison Kiellor points out, other than giving a token nod to Advent with Advent calendars or Advent wreaths, pretty much everyone thinks of the month of December as the Christmas season - rather than the Advent season.
I think this is too bad because I like Advent a lot. So I had a strong case of ADD this year. And in many ways, it was great. I avoided the Christmas rush - choosing instead to take some quiet time to rest and prepare and take care of myself. We didn't even buy our tree until Dec 23 - a practice we might repeat again because it was quite festive and joyful and we got a beautiful frasier fir for only $20. And we had a lot of fun decorating it together as a family on Christmas eve. It is still glowing brightly in our living room today, the fifth day of Christmas. It will remain there until the 12th day of Christmas - January 5th.
I really like honoring the church calendar rather than succumbing to the commercial calendar. But this year I've found it to be rather a struggle to honor the Christmas season. In Advent, it was easy enough to be counter cultural. But this week, as I say "Merry Christmas!" to people, I've noticed the strange looks I get. "Yes.... um .... Happy New Year," people mostly respond. What's wrong with her? Doesn't she know that Christmas was last weekend? I've been posting a different Christmas song or video on the church facebook page each day of Christmas, and I notice I seem to be the only one still talking about Christmas at all. And I bet it'll seem even stranger when I'm still saying Merry Christmas to people next week. After New Year's Day, it'll be right out! People have become Christmas weary - and who can blame them? We've all had enough tinsel, Jingle Bells and Rudolph to last another year for sure! People are ready to take the tree down and be done with it. Time to move on to 2012.
So I'm left to wonder what it means to want to honor a calendar that is no longer normal. What does it mean to want to stick to traditions that are no longer known, let alone fashionable? And this leads me to ask: as fewer and fewer people consider church an important part of their lives, what does it mean to be a faithful churchgoer? A person who professes a particular religious faith? A disciple of Jesus? Although sometimes it feels like a struggle, I'm not sure this struggle is all bad. Because these days, I have to consciously choose my faith, to consciously decide to learn to swim in it and to really work at claiming it as my own - instead of just being swept up in the tide of what everyone else around me is doing. I have to intentionally choose my own priorities when what's important to me seems counter cultural to most others - whether that's something as small as calendar traditions or as large as choosing my basic priorities in life. I have to learn what it means to stand up for something even when it makes me stick out and seem strange to others. I simply can't be smugly comfortable in my religious faith as some of my recent forebears had become, and I think it is a good thing. I take heart that Jesus himself did not have a smugly comfortable life of faith, either.
