“What is wrong with you?” asked my incredulous spouse.

All I had done, with earnestness and maybe even eagerness, was ask, “Don’t you think we should put up the Christmas decorations soon?”

Typically, I’m a heel-dragger. A reluctant participant trying to find some sly excuse to slip away. For most of my adult life my feelings toward Christmas and Advent have been ambivalent. I once sermonized, “Christmas: So much to mock. So little time.” A couple years ago I blogged here that I wondered why many who are perfectly okay with “squishy Christology” are simultaneously the most unbending of fundamentalists when it comes to “keeping Advent pure.”

What has changed? My guess is it’s retirement. This is my third Advent without the responsibilities of leading a congregation. Maybe I’ve finally arrived at a place where I can savor these days. 

In response to Sophie’s question, I replied, “I think this might be the first Christmas where I’m truly doing only the things I want to do.” That sounds dangerously selfish. But it feels okay.

Our cards and letters were done earlier than ever. For me, cards aren’t an ought, driven by duty. I enjoy them. Staying connected with longtime friends feels beautiful, not burdensome. Spotify tells me it “curated” at my request an “Advent Folk” playlist — just for me. I’m pleased to report that Spotify’s AI doesn’t fully understand Advent yet. Maybe by next year it will have learned more. Nonetheless, it offered Iris DeMent, Over the Rhine, Fleet Foxes, John Prine, even boygenius. Not bad. I might even bake something in the next few days!

Oh, and I’m re-reading Gilead by Marilynne Robinson in bite-size portions just before bed, ten to fifteen pages at a time. And honestly, for the first time, I can say I’m actually appreciating her. Usually I’ve thought, “Marilynne, you’re just too profound, too good for me.”  

Re-reading Gilead feels like a marker of where I am now in life. The book came out in 2004. I looked it up. Back then, a bright, literate couple led an adult reading group at our church. I tried to participate. In case you didn’t know, attempting to read 50 to 60 pages of Robinson in 45 minutes, late on Saturday night when you have all that Sunday-to-come anxiety floating through your soul, is not the most fruitful way to read her! Yet that’s where I was.

Maybe I’m finally succeeding at Advent. It’s the season when words like watching, longing, and preparing, pensive and patient, dormant and darkness fill our consciousness. At last, I seem to have the bandwidth for at least some of that.

Many years ago, after what I presume was an Advent diatribe against consumerism (probably using John the Baptizer as my launching pad), a woman in our congregation approached me. She seemed sheepish, maybe shamed, or simply hurt. She explained that her sister had lost her husband in early December, several years before. To soften a sad anniversary, the sisters had established a tradition of meeting for lunch and shopping together every year in early December. “Should I not do it?” she asked in all earnestness. “Is it wrong for us to enjoy shopping together?”

Then it was my turn to be sad, and maybe shamed. Had I stolen her joy? Undermined a sweet, comforting, sisterly ritual? It felt like my diatribe had missed the mark. 

This continues to be my concern about our Advent messages. We imagine we’re giving people permission to opt out of the Christmas rush, offering an alternative image of meaningful celebration. Instead, we often shame people into feeling like they’re not succeeding at Advent. They’re not doing Advent right.

Of course, I know too many people are trapped in frenzied Decembers. Too much shopping, too much booze, too much tinsel, too many expectations. But I’ve also realized that I have little contact, much less credibility, with those folks. They’re not, as we say, “adjacent” to me. 

The people I am adjacent to also have full Decembers. It’s filled with a seventh-grade orchestra concert, volunteering at a soup kitchen, taking a granddaughter to The Nutcracker, caroling at a care facility, writing notes to old friends, snowshoeing with their spouse, and even going shopping with a widowed sister. 

If the only Advent vision we hold before people is sipping organic tea by candlelight in a handmade, scratchy sweater while ruminating on all the suffering and injustices in the world, then a lot of really good, sincere, wanting-to-do-Advent-right folk are going to feel like failures.

I’m grateful for my stress-free Advent. Maybe it’s a luxury few can afford. And those who are doing Advent differently might just also be succeeding at Advent.