The Gifts of Advent

As a smitten grandmother to the lovely Madelyn Simone, I decided to add a distinctive touch to her fourth Christmas by preparing a basket of small gifts for the month of December so she can open one each day. They were accompanied by an Advent calendar so she can track the approach to Christmas. I realize that the concept of waiting a whole day before she can open another gift might be a bit difficult for her to grasp, but I also wanted her to get a ‘waiting’ sense of the days of Advent. 

On her first gift day, her mother explained that she’d be able to open one present each day as we waited for Christmas to arrive, and that she could look for the day’s present as soon as she finished her cereal. She complied well with that direction, gobbling down her Fruit Loops so she could get to her desired reward. She opened the first present, made the necessary oohs and aahs, and then requested more cereal. When she finished her second bowl, she told Lauren, “Now I get another present, right?” So much for the waiting lesson.

In our immediate access culture, delayed gratification is not easy. Credit card offers arrive in the mail daily, while fast food establishments pride themselves on having our drive-through meal ready in seconds. Need your tax refund now? Just get in line, and while “applicable fees apply” is definitely in fine print on those offers, most partakers don’t equate those fees with predatory lending practices, although the percentage of cost definitely fits that definition. As consumers, we are bombarded by the “buy now, pay later” theme that sends the message to us – “if you want it, it’s yours.”

Yet there remain times of waiting that we cannot hurry along. The budding of the leaves on the trees in the springtime.  The eagerness for a baby’s first step. The passing of a loved one from this world to the next. The  anticipation of the birth of a long-awaited baby (although we do push that some with scheduled inductions when the bun has been in the oven a day or two more than was expected).

The encounter with waiting also ties into an experience of faith. The gospel story of a babe in a manger that vies for attention with Frosty the Snowman, Santa Claus, leg lamps, and the four calling birds, three French hens, two turtle doves, and a partridge in a pear tree, is a story of patience, of rhythm, of waiting. The scriptures describe it like this: “in the fullness of time.” Mary and Joseph awaited the anticipated birth as do all young parents, but the spirit of patient anticipation is best seen in the persons of Simeon and Anna, waiting in the temple for the consolation of Israel. Their patience echoes through the centuries in the plaintive chords of the ancient carol, “O come, O come Emmanuel.”

That same spirit of waiting was marked by the lighting of the Advent candles in my family’s home on the frosty Sunday evenings of my childhood. We’d sing a carol together, and then my dad would strike a match to symbolically welcome the light of the world into our living room, into our waiting hearts. As little ones, I’m not sure we quite understood what we were doing as we participated in that ritual of faith, impatient as we were for the arrival of the big man in the red suit. But that small flame still flickers in the recesses of my memory in the darkness of a December night, as those early seeds of faith were cultivated in the light of a circle of candles.

I’m not sure if I’ll repeat the Advent presents idea next year, and I doubt Madelyn and I will attempt another lopsided gingerbread house (another of my brilliant ideas).  But in the midst of the cookie-baking and gift-wrapping, I want to be sure that Madelyn and I pause to light a candle, sing a song, and tell of the story of the ages, steeped in faith and framed in the rhythm of eternity. Merry Christmas, Madelyn Simone. Merry Christmas, everyone.