In Which I Celebrate the New Year

Did you know that yesterday was New Year's Day? No, I haven't gotten several weeks ahead of myself. No, I don't belong to some little known culture that follows an alternate calendar. That is, unless you consider Christianity a little known culture. Yesterday was the first Sunday of Advent, which begins the Christian liturgical year (sometimes called the church year). Weirdly, this is not super well known in the evangelical protestant world.

I was actually introduced to the church year by helping my mother teach preschoolers at her church when I was in high school. Her church is hit or miss when it comes to following the pattern of the church year in the regular worship service, but, in the realm of children's worship, they were great at teaching children about the wheel of the church year. Incidentally, that's also where I learned the Doxology, and I still do a toned down version of the motions we taught the kids every week in church :).

As an adult I settled into a United Methodist church. UMC churches are a mixed bag in a lot of ways, especially regarding how and to what extent they observe the church year. Our church consistently observes Advent, but is hit or miss on acknowledging the whole calendar.

I'm thankful the church is pretty good at observing Advent, because I really love this season. It's such a beautiful way to get your heart and life ready for Christmas. That said, I really like a lot of aspects of the secular American Christmas season as well and I'm not an Advent purist.

My observance of Advent outside of church began when Squirrelboy was a baby. We started buying Advent calendars with those little doors with a small piece of chocolate behind each door. We'd open a door each day, someone would eat the little piece of chocolate, we'd read the Bible verse behind the door and that was it.

Sometime when Squirrelboy was in preschool (I don't remember the year) a friend who knew I was looking for more liturgy in my life sent us a metal Advent wreath along with a set of candles. That wreath was what really pushed us into doing more than eating a piece of chocolate and reading a verse.

We eventually also added a reusable wooden Advent calendar, which has been filled with a variety of things from small toys to candy to pieces of a Lego set that's progressively built during Advent. This year, in case you're curious, the kids had no interest in Lego sets or little toys so each door hides some quarters and two Hershey kisses.

Here's a sidenote in case anyone whose child is newly diagnosed with type 1 diabetes finds my blog and reads this post.  Yes, it really is okay for kids with diabetes to eat regular chocolate. In fact, some newly diagnosed people can eat snacks anywhere from 5g-15g carbs without insulin (that's something you need to consult your endo about), in which case they wouldn't even require insulin for a little piece of chocolate. Kittygirl get insulin even for one Hershey Kiss, but she still eats them.

Our Advent setup includes the wreath and calendar mentioned, usually some kind of paper activity provided by our church's children's ministry (that's the paper tree and stickers you see), a regular or storybook Bible, the brochure that came with the wreath suggesting prayers for each week of Advent, and an Advent/Christmas related fiction book that we've chosen to read from every day. The past several years we've been reading through a variety of Santa Claus origin stories. This year's offering is Kringle by Tony Abbott. I fell in love with this book years ago and highly recommend it. It's a Santa Claus origin story told as an epic fantasy featuring shoe-making elves, weather-controlling goblins, Saxon pirates, and even a monk.

Yes, you correctly intuited from the above information that we're devout Christians, we observe Advent, and we tell our kids about Santa Claus. Long story short, I don't think believing in Santa during your childhood and following Jesus for the rest of your life need to be mutually exclusive. In fact, I believe that embracing the mystery of a mythical gift giver can give kids a leg up in understanding and embracing the mystery of the gospel when they're ready to understand it. That deserves its own post, so I'll just leave it there as a tease.

Also pictured is our Advent/Christmas Shepherd. His name is Isaiah John. He's basically a Christian version of The Elf on the Shelf. Instead of checking up on your behavior and reporting your Christmas wishes back to Santa, Isaiah John spends Advent searching for the Baby Jesus and reminds us to prepare to celebrate His birth. On Christmas morning he finds a little plush Baby Jesus. He sticks around for the twelve days of Christmas to remind us to keep celebrating.

Because we embrace contradictions, we also have an Elf on the Shelf. I'm not, however, one of those crazy Pinterest elf moms. If you're a crazy Pinterest elf mom and devising amazing stunts and props for your elf gives you joy, I say forge ahead. If it gives you a headache, you have my permission to stop, for what it's worth. All that Sam (our elf) does is move from place to place in the house each day and deliver letters to Santa. The kids still love him.

We have a pretty crazy schedule, and it gets a little crazier in the month of December because we've had a kid dancing the Nutcracker for the past ten years. I love that Advent gives us an excuse to settle down together every (or almost every) evening and reflect on what the holiday we're preparing the celebrate really means.

If you've never celebrated Advent with your kids, I highly recommend starting it.  You don't need a fancy wreath or a refillable calendar like we have, though those are nice. If all you do is buy a chocolate filled calendar from the store, read a Christmas picture book, and say a prayer, you've made a great start. You can fill in more of the things we use as the years go by, or you can learn about the various traditions and adopt the ones that work best for your family.

Here are some end notes specifically for the types of families who might be reading this. As I said above, it really is okay for a kid with diabetes to eat chocolate. However, if that stresses you out, it's also okay to forgo that aspect. You can use little toys of some kind, put a new special ornament on the tree each day, create a felt nativity scene to fill in little by little, or whatever else works best for your family. Some families like to take turns doing the reading. If this is impossible for your dyslexic or stressful, you can assign him or her a different special role: maybe lighting the candle(s) every day. Finally, if you hyperactive ADHDer can't sit still for multiple readings, just adapt it to whatever is best for them. Read just one Bible verse and a super short picture book. Or read as much as you want but encourage your kid to do something active yet not disruptive while it's happening. You don't all have to be sitting in a circle looking raptly at the reader.

Now, of course, if you belong to another religion and don't celebrate Christian or you aren't religious and you celebrate the secular version of Christmas, Advent doesn't apply to you. However, if you still want to have 24 pieces of chocolate during the month of December no one is stopping you :). If you identify as a Christian of any type and have never paid much attention to Advent, though, I highly recommend digging into what this season has to offer. Our culture wants us to jump straight into Christmas on November 1st at the absolute latest. Advent offers us a chance to slow down, step back, and reflect on what it means that the creator of the universe chose to be born as a human baby in order to bring about our salvation.