7 Quick Takes: Advent was good.

Lately I’ve encountered a lot of talk about Holiday Burnout.  People who are just sick and tired of Christmas.  People really struggling to feel the Advent-Love.  People who know they’ll go to bed on the 25th exhausted, disappointed, and thinking, “Is that all?  It ends like this?”

You know what?  I’ve had a wonderful Advent!  Peaceful.  Joyful.  Can’t-wait-for-Christmas.  Genuinely looking forward to 12 Days of All Things Good.  Here’s what it looked like:

1.

We had The Plague.  Not a really bad plague.   Not the kind that depopulates cities or disfigures previously-beautiful people.  Just a day or two of  “Hey, death seems like  a nice idea!” and then several weeks of non-contagious laying around, sleeping all day, and sticking to activities that require no lung usage.   So visions of bustling around doing holiday things?  Out the window.  Gone.  No-Can-Do.  Didn’t happen.

2.

Dumb luck.  For reasons that have nothing to do with  my own clever planning, 80% of our regular weekly activities finished for the year by the first week of December.  80% less driving around. 80% less herding cranky children.  80% less repenting of uncharitable thoughts towards stupid careless clueless other drivers.

And then back in early November  I had recklessly committed a labor-intensive Advent catechist-project; we had to cancel it when we realized it would conflict with The Immaculate Conception.   Good thing, since I was barely standing up straight for my last RE class December 7th.

(Shocker: The kids were NUTS that night.  Pure crazy-power that class.  They can smell weakness.)

3.

I chose not to over-commit. We went to a few of our very favorite (or very necessary) holiday events.  But the rest, even though they promised to be good and wonderful, we chose to skip.  I don’t like long, loud, chaotic festivities.  I know other people love that stuff.  Cookies! St. Nick! Bags of Trinkets!  I do not love it.  We skipped it.  Everyone is happy.

4.

We’ve hit our Christmas / Advent decorating sweet spot.  It took us a few years to figure out what this looks like for us.  When does the tree go up?  When do we decorate it?  What about lights and colors and all that stuff?  I know it is the pasttime of a special kind of Catholic to agonize about these things.  I agree it is silly to lay down some Universal Law Of When The Tree May Be Lit.

But I think it is important to self-examine just a little.  To try things out and see how they feel.  Our culture flat out stinks at observing Advent.  If we want to do it, we’re on our own for figuring out how it’s done.  It is a happy year when we the members of the family can agree that we’ve found an approach that works for us, and hits the right balance between preparation, penitence, and joyful expectation.

Double-bonus for your resident Complainer:  I totally 100% approved of the way my parish handled Advent decorations this year.  Not that it’s any of my business to have an opinion on these things.  But it was nice all the same.

5.

I live in a cave.  I don’t watch TV.  I don’t shop.  And every year from Thanksgiving to New Year’s I turn off the radio, because I’d rather have silence than cheesy holiday songs.  These are not due to my amazing virtue and spirit of penance.  I have very little virtue, and a purely intellectual spirit of penance.  These are self-indulgences.  They are me doing what I prefer to do.   But they conveniently shield me from the onslaught of Giftmas Propaganda and bad (Christian) or blasphemous (secular)  music.

So I totally get it, if you who bravely suffer these things have lost your Advent Love after enough weeks of torment.  I would too.  I am grateful for my sheltered life.

6.

Don’t forget to pray for Allie Hathaway.

7.

Jen Fulwiler at the Register ponders, “Why no Catholics among the top 100 Mom Bloggers?”  My answer is this:  We don’t do that.  If our homes are all in order, with lovely decorations,  Craft A Day, and beautiful meals on the table every night . . . that’s our cue to have another baby. 

We don’t live showcase lives that we can peddle on the internet to those longing for Housewife Wonderland.   We focus on our highest  priorities, and we let the rest be someone else’s calling.  Our lives will never be magazine pretty.  My house is not that clean, the only reason I have baked goods lined up is that I trust the nine-year-old with brownie mix and I wasn’t being strict enough about math homework, and we didn’t even get to sing this year, because, well, plague.

We lives our lives poured out. Full and running over.  Everything that is not essential to our calling, we set aside.  And in the process we do not end up beautiful, famous, or rich.  But we do get joy and peace.