meditation on Pre-Christmas lah dee dah

Pre Christmas la dee dah

The Church year calls it Advent and it starts on Sunday. You might know it better as “all the stuff that happens before Christmas”& “the process of gift selection and wrapping.” The two might or might not have a lot to do with each other. We surely do live together, though.

The whole idea of Advent is how to look at the new creation God is bringing. The idea of gift selection and wrapping has to do with finding the right gifts for others in a way that celebrates the day after Thanksgiving madness at the malls, Black Monday, free shipping and in general, consumption. Many folks just love it.

Our choices this year (yes, we have choices!) have to do with our intentions and our budgets, and whether we discover any sense of holiness in their projection onto day to day living.

Where I live, many people put up exterior Christmas lights to commemorate their values. They are indicating they believe in Christmas. There are more Santa Clauses than Madonnas and child where I live, but still, these are lights to the world. This is the only time of year lights go up. For example, have you ever seen Easter lights on peoples’ lawns? I don’t recall seeing chasing lights on a cross at Easter. Nor have have I seen front lawns aflame at Pentecost! And certainly not for four weeks ahead of the big day. Fire crackers on the 4th of July is the only thing similar, and that event is over in an hour. (Ironic too, I think, that our national “light to the world” is a series of explosions!)

Advent, the church season prior to Christmas, calls upon followers of Christ to look forward to a renewed time, and we will know it’s a new time because everything will seem different—“lions will lie down with lambs” and “swords will be beaten into plowshares”
(read “personal and political enemies will get along”). You’ll note in the history of our planet, we’re without much documentation that this has occurred. We’re still looking forward to it’s culmination, though we did have the birth of a savior. That got things going.

Of course, there are people like my neighbor who don’t seem to be hopeful. He’s just getting through this time of life. I got this idea from a recent encounter.

I was struggling with a getting a few lights up in the shrubs outside my home. He pulled in his driveway from work and jumped out with the words, “I don’t do Christmas!” I responded, “Yeah, I haven’t seen you put up any indicators that you do.” “Well, my family gets together all year, especially in the summer, so I’m low key about now. The kids will get together at my “former’s” house, and then they’ll come over to my house (without his “former” I suppose) and we’ll do some gifts. That’s about it.”

I was amused and perplexed by this conversation. Here I was, putting up indicators of filled and unfulfilled hope, and there he was, thinking there’s nothing to this time of year, except “doing some gifts.” That dichotomy says it all, and it lifts up the pre-Christmas la dee day question:

What is hope or is there none? And if there is hope, where do we find it? How will we share it?

Personally, I’m looking forward to some pre-Christmas sharing with this neighbor. Maybe he’s really Santa, and I just missed it ‘cuz I was too busy putting up lights to notice. What do you think?

--f