It’s beginning to look a lot
like Christmas — earlier and earlier every year. The evergreens at Rockefeller
Center and the White House were decorated in November, radio stations started
playing carols after Halloween, and stores have been promoting Christmas sales
for months.
But at Nick Senger’s house
in Washington state, the carols and blinking lights are not welcome until well
after Thanksgiving. Instead, family traditions include setting the table with
purple placemats and an Advent wreath, and waiting until Dec. 25 to complete
their Nativity display.
“When the kids wake up on
Christmas morning, they always look to make sure Santa has brought baby Jesus,”
Senger joked.
Call it the “Battle for
Advent” — one that, for a few weeks at least, makes traditional Christians
unlikely allies with atheists, secularists and non-Christians in the so-called “War
on Christmas.”
Advent advocates — boosted
this year by a pastoral letter from the Roman Catholic bishop of Utah and a
homily by a media savvy Brooklyn deacon — complain not only about holiday
commercialization, but also about the loss of an important month of prayer in
the rush to prematurely celebrate Christmas.
“Obviously, certain things
have to be done before the end of Advent, but it is realistic to expect that
Americans will want to celebrate both Advent and the season of Christmas,”
Bishop John Wester of Utah explained through a spokesperson. “These are two
different seasons: Advent to prepare for the coming of Christ and Christmas to
celebrate his coming.”
Karen Westerfield Tucker, a
Boston University School of Theology professor, said her Methodist family
always waited until Christmas Eve to decorate its tree, keeping it up for 12
days until Jan. 6, the Feast of the Epiphany. The Advent season, in contrast,
is a time
for Christians to patiently
prepare for the coming of Christ and his baptism, she said.
“It was a time for
repentance and solemn reflection, and certainly not an occasion for festive
preparation,” Tucker said. “In current practice, we’ve got the celebrations
backwards — before the events rather than afterwards.”
Part of the problem stems from
the Depression-era decision to move Thanksgiving up a week, getting the holiday
shopping season — heralded by Santa Claus at the end of the Macy’s Thanksgiving
Day parade — started even earlier, said Martin Connell, author of Eternity
Today: On the Liturgical Year.
“I was raised Catholic and
there would be not one decoration in the house on Christmas Eve,” he said. “It
was a way to make Christmas more celebratory, so that the wonder of Jesus’
birth was connected to the sparkling lights and all that.”
Advent advocates say they
understand that merchants depend on the holiday hype to get them through the
end of the year, particularly during an economic downturn; they also
acknowledge that ceremonial Christmas tree lightings have become beloved events
eagerly awaited as soon as the turkey, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie are
polished off.
Even devout Catholics get
into the swing of the season a bit early: The U.S. headquarters of Opus Dei in
New York City has a Christmas tree in its lobby, and the Vatican’s tree in St.
Peter’s Square is lit in mid-December.
But churches, religious
groups and families could benefit by slowing down and savoring the weeks
leading up to Christmas as a unique and special season, Advent advocates say.
They can deck their halls with
purple decorations, Advent calendars, Jesse trees — which show the biblical
lineage of Jesus — and Advent wreaths featuring one candle for each of the four
Sundays before Christmas. That’s three purple candles as signs of penance and
one rose candle for joy. And there are dozens of Advent hymns like “O Come, O Come
Emmanuel” to sing before it’s time for “Joy to the World.”
Observing Advent patiently
would help relieve the stress that has become synonymous with the Christmas
season, added Deacon Greg Kandra of Brooklyn, who writes a blog for Beliefnet
called “The Deacon’s Bench.”
Busy people want to get
their Christmas cards out, decorations up and shopping in, and Kandra doubts
that “you can put the genie back in the bottle.” But a compromise would be to
postpone these kinds of actions until at least mid-December, if not Christmas
Eve, and consider having holiday parties in early January, he said.
Senger, a Catholic school
teacher, has started polling people on his blog, “Catholic School Chronicle,”
about steps they might take to “enter more fully into Advent.” So far, most
respondents say they feel comfortable putting up Advent decorations and
delaying Christmas displays, but the avoiding Christmas carols and parties
before Dec. 25 remain unpopular.
“People are interested in
things that don’t interfere with traditions they already have,” he said. “I
wouldn’t expect society to change, although society would benefit from
Catholics who are more attuned to the Advent season and not so caught up in the
buying and the
rushing.”
His family gradually begins
putting up some Christmas decorations around mid-December, but Senger has
decided to keep the radio dial away from Christmas stations until Dec. 24 this
year. The children love the Advent traditions, but postponing carols has been
surprisingly difficult, he noted.
“I think when we can finally sing them, they will
really appreciate them,” Senger said.
“All this is to commemorate the waiting
that the Israelites went through and to look ahead, that we’re really waiting
for some unknown point in time when Christ will come again.”