// But really driving the market, I think, is a kind of frantic existential panic, the need to be focusing on something next, to move instantly from one focus to another, anything to avoid the terrifying void that gapes at the center of a society without God and ignore the giant question about the purpose and meaning of our fleeting human existence. //
Frantic, yes. Noise, schedule, hurry, hurry, hurry, and yet more noise, until the pill that causes collapse and then the caffeine that kicks off waking.
Before I was nine we normally put up our tree on Christmas Eve. Then my brother was born on December 23 and one of the things we did to celebrate his birthday was decorate the tree. I don't remember when we removed the decorations.
I didn't notice in the pic Ed posted any kind of Nativity scene...I might have missed it.
Here in the buckle of the Bible belt, surprisingly there is a lot of secular decorations (last year too) and this year already. Very few Nativity scenes.
Rather sad, in reality, the Grinch really seems to have stolen Christmass.
Thank you for your reflection on the purpose and importance of Advent and Ordinary Time. I loved it. It’s so important to be able to wait and anticipate, and Advent is one of my favorite seasons. I kind of think we are made for the here and now, though. The here and now is the only place we *can* be. In order to wait and anticipate, we need to center ourselves in where we are as well as where we have not yet arrived. But, as you say, that means Advent when it’s not time yet for Christmas. That means the slow, hard, (often) boring work of Ordinary Time when it’s not yet time for a holiday. (I’m a big fan of Lewis’s comments in the Screwtape Letters that the present is the closest we have to God’s timelessness.)
Anyway …. I actually think we’re saying the same thing, just thought I’d throw out a different angle. :-P Thanks so much for all you do. Happy Thanksgiving!!
I am going to revise my Advent playlist into an early Advent playlist (The King Shall Come When Morning Dawns; Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence; The Man Comes Around) and late Advent playlist (whatever is on the current one).
Growing up, we used to leave our tree up until Jan. 7, when we would celebrate Orthodox Christmas with my Dad’s Serbian Orthodox family (his parents immigrated from Montenegro and the tradition was kept alive until a few years after her death at 96). Until we finally got an artificial tree, my Mom always worried our poor tree would go up in flames after bring up for nearly a month. That never happened, thankfully, and now they don’t put up a tree at all since everyone is out of the house (and my Dad converted to Catholicism after I was ordained, butt we still wish him “Cretan Bozich” on 1/7). One thing I have encouraged my respective flocks to do is take up the “Christmas Tree Challenge,” meaning that they have an Advent wreath and actually pray around it and enter into the Season, and then put up the tree right before we enter Christmas Season. Then they leave the tree up and the lights outside on until the Baptism of the Lord to tell their neighbors that Christmas is a season, not just a day, and it just begins at Christmas Day! Needless to say, only a few have taken up the challenge, while a number have created a hybrid of sorts. Most think I’m the Grinch. lol
My Christmas tree goes up the first Sunday after Thanksgiving and stays up till after Epiphany! I also have an advent wreath and candles on my table. Please don’t hate me!
I decorate from the Friday after Thanksgiving (today) until Epiphany. It’s weird to have the lights still shining on January 5th in my neighborhood: for how quickly the lights go up after Thanksgiving it’s equally amazing how quickly they’re taken down at Christmas/New Year’s. We’re definitely that house you can see from quite a ways away once everybody else’s lawns are dim. I always feel slightly awkward, but it’s definitely my (and my young kids’) favorite time of year.
Great music choices! This one brought me back to freshman year in college playing "quarters" in my dorm room with my friends. :) That may even have been before red cups!
Love your Pillar Posts. Not sure how you do it, but I feel even when you must bring us bad news, you are still able to leave us with a little bit of joy and hope. Thank you.
--> If only Advent had really catchy songs that were popular for radio play, then it might have caught on in the Modern World.
--> One clue as to when people used to decorate might be found in "Deck the Halls". The song - ostensibly about putting up decorations, but really about partying - mentions the "Yuletide" carol and the blazing "Yule" log. Considering that the lyrics come from a Christianized England, Yule here refers to the period post-Dec. 25, i.e., Christmas. This would coincide with the 12-day period of gift-giving also popularized in song.
Many secular “Christmas” music is actually secular Advent music, it seems to me. “Santa Clause is coming.” “I’ll be home for Christmas.” “Beginning to look a lot like Christmas.” “Soon it will be Christmas Day.” That’s why the Christmas music feels stale on December 26 and most people turn it off. But all they have to sing about for “Advent” is shopping and decorating, because Christmas is just lights, cookies and presents.
It does amuse me when people celebrate the “twelve days of Christmas,” meaning, the twelve days *before* Christmas. They truly don’t realize they’ve understood the concept backwards. Many people in secular society celebrate the Octave in some way, without realizing it, and don’t treat the time between Christmas and New Years as an ordinary week. (Businesses and schools closed, etc.) And yet, they would say Christmas is over if you asked. They’re just so confused.
I wish Catholics would at least wait for Advent to begin before they deck the halls, instead of taking the totally secular approach and letting Thanksgiving begin a liturgical season. I guess they need something fun to fill that long Thanksgiving weekend which has no particular purpose or custom after Thursday, so why not borrow from Christmas for direction?
// But really driving the market, I think, is a kind of frantic existential panic, the need to be focusing on something next, to move instantly from one focus to another, anything to avoid the terrifying void that gapes at the center of a society without God and ignore the giant question about the purpose and meaning of our fleeting human existence. //
Frantic, yes. Noise, schedule, hurry, hurry, hurry, and yet more noise, until the pill that causes collapse and then the caffeine that kicks off waking.
Before I was nine we normally put up our tree on Christmas Eve. Then my brother was born on December 23 and one of the things we did to celebrate his birthday was decorate the tree. I don't remember when we removed the decorations.
I didn't notice in the pic Ed posted any kind of Nativity scene...I might have missed it.
Here in the buckle of the Bible belt, surprisingly there is a lot of secular decorations (last year too) and this year already. Very few Nativity scenes.
Rather sad, in reality, the Grinch really seems to have stolen Christmass.
Thank you for your reflection on the purpose and importance of Advent and Ordinary Time. I loved it. It’s so important to be able to wait and anticipate, and Advent is one of my favorite seasons. I kind of think we are made for the here and now, though. The here and now is the only place we *can* be. In order to wait and anticipate, we need to center ourselves in where we are as well as where we have not yet arrived. But, as you say, that means Advent when it’s not time yet for Christmas. That means the slow, hard, (often) boring work of Ordinary Time when it’s not yet time for a holiday. (I’m a big fan of Lewis’s comments in the Screwtape Letters that the present is the closest we have to God’s timelessness.)
Anyway …. I actually think we’re saying the same thing, just thought I’d throw out a different angle. :-P Thanks so much for all you do. Happy Thanksgiving!!
The waiting is indeed the hardest part
I am going to revise my Advent playlist into an early Advent playlist (The King Shall Come When Morning Dawns; Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence; The Man Comes Around) and late Advent playlist (whatever is on the current one).
"Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence" is one of my favorite hymns of all, not just for Advent.
The words are from the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, the incarnation referred to is actually the Eucharist, but it certainly works for Christmas.
Growing up, we used to leave our tree up until Jan. 7, when we would celebrate Orthodox Christmas with my Dad’s Serbian Orthodox family (his parents immigrated from Montenegro and the tradition was kept alive until a few years after her death at 96). Until we finally got an artificial tree, my Mom always worried our poor tree would go up in flames after bring up for nearly a month. That never happened, thankfully, and now they don’t put up a tree at all since everyone is out of the house (and my Dad converted to Catholicism after I was ordained, butt we still wish him “Cretan Bozich” on 1/7). One thing I have encouraged my respective flocks to do is take up the “Christmas Tree Challenge,” meaning that they have an Advent wreath and actually pray around it and enter into the Season, and then put up the tree right before we enter Christmas Season. Then they leave the tree up and the lights outside on until the Baptism of the Lord to tell their neighbors that Christmas is a season, not just a day, and it just begins at Christmas Day! Needless to say, only a few have taken up the challenge, while a number have created a hybrid of sorts. Most think I’m the Grinch. lol
Doh! Why do I always see the typos after I proofread and post? “But we still wish him Cretan Bozich......”
My Christmas tree goes up the first Sunday after Thanksgiving and stays up till after Epiphany! I also have an advent wreath and candles on my table. Please don’t hate me!
There is so much dark in January, I keep a few Christmas lights going til Feb 1. This is ny Catholic excuse:
Down With The Rosemary, And So
Candlemas Eve
(February 1st)
Words: Robert Herrick (1591-1674)
Source: William Henry Husk, Songs of the Nativity (London: John Camden Hotten, 1868)
Down with the rosemary, and so
Down with the bays and mistletoe;
Down with the holly, ivy, all
Wherewith ye deck's the Christmas hall;
That so the superstitious find
Not one least branch there left behind:
For look! How many leaves there be
Neglected there, Maids, trust to me,
So many goblins you shall see.
That’s great, thank you!
The Vatican trials are absolutely Exhausting! Finish up already!!
I love the term "tradismatic." I am very much, as the kids say, here for it.
I decorate from the Friday after Thanksgiving (today) until Epiphany. It’s weird to have the lights still shining on January 5th in my neighborhood: for how quickly the lights go up after Thanksgiving it’s equally amazing how quickly they’re taken down at Christmas/New Year’s. We’re definitely that house you can see from quite a ways away once everybody else’s lawns are dim. I always feel slightly awkward, but it’s definitely my (and my young kids’) favorite time of year.
Great music choices! This one brought me back to freshman year in college playing "quarters" in my dorm room with my friends. :) That may even have been before red cups!
Love your Pillar Posts. Not sure how you do it, but I feel even when you must bring us bad news, you are still able to leave us with a little bit of joy and hope. Thank you.
--> If only Advent had really catchy songs that were popular for radio play, then it might have caught on in the Modern World.
--> One clue as to when people used to decorate might be found in "Deck the Halls". The song - ostensibly about putting up decorations, but really about partying - mentions the "Yuletide" carol and the blazing "Yule" log. Considering that the lyrics come from a Christianized England, Yule here refers to the period post-Dec. 25, i.e., Christmas. This would coincide with the 12-day period of gift-giving also popularized in song.
I don’t want to be nit-picky, but the 3rd Sunday in Advent is “Gaudete”, not “Laetare” Sunday. The latter is the 4th Sunday in Lent.
Many secular “Christmas” music is actually secular Advent music, it seems to me. “Santa Clause is coming.” “I’ll be home for Christmas.” “Beginning to look a lot like Christmas.” “Soon it will be Christmas Day.” That’s why the Christmas music feels stale on December 26 and most people turn it off. But all they have to sing about for “Advent” is shopping and decorating, because Christmas is just lights, cookies and presents.
It does amuse me when people celebrate the “twelve days of Christmas,” meaning, the twelve days *before* Christmas. They truly don’t realize they’ve understood the concept backwards. Many people in secular society celebrate the Octave in some way, without realizing it, and don’t treat the time between Christmas and New Years as an ordinary week. (Businesses and schools closed, etc.) And yet, they would say Christmas is over if you asked. They’re just so confused.
I wish Catholics would at least wait for Advent to begin before they deck the halls, instead of taking the totally secular approach and letting Thanksgiving begin a liturgical season. I guess they need something fun to fill that long Thanksgiving weekend which has no particular purpose or custom after Thursday, so why not borrow from Christmas for direction?