Advent is the season which we wait for the coming Christ child. We wait with anticipation for the fulfilment of hope. Each Sunday we light just one more candle, never all of them, and it doesn't look quite right to our eyes. We want it to be finished and complete all at once. The one candle looks too lonely, two lacks balance, and three is almost right but not quite. But on Christmas Eve, all is made complete. God says, "When the days were completed..."
I eagerly anticipate decorating for Christmas. I plan crafty things I want to do, what theme I want and where everything will go. For me, everything needs to go a certain way for "the mood" Christmas to feel right and it starts with the tree and decorations going up Thanksgiving weekend. The six or seven weeks of twinkling light is the best part of the season for me. But this year it will be a little different.
School and studying for finals have taken all of Chad's time. Before he started studying he had one request- to decorate the tree and hang the lights outside. Which means it won't happen in my "perfect" timing but in all likelyhood when he is finished with finals, only one week before Christmas.
This was hard for me. In this time of living on a little, it's the little things that mean the most. And for me, Christmas means peace and rest that is not found the rest of the year. And as much as I hate to admit it, I find most of the peace and rest in the lighted tree and other things of Christmas.
While waiting for Christmas to "start" I'm finding myself focusing on Advent more than ever before. I am listening more attentively to the Advent readings about waiting for the Promise to be fulfilled. I am finding more meaning in Sarah's waiting for the son she was promised in her old age. I'm feeling a bit of the anticipation the Children of Israel felt while waiting for the Messiah's arrival. It's seems silly but in the absence of lights and a tree, I am feeling Christ more.
And it feel just right.
