06 Nov November Note From Dri: Prepping for Advent
After some rain and cooler temperatures, it’s finally starting to feel like fall! Which means it’s time to start preparing for Advent, which is a season of preparing our hearts for Christmas. Usually the Advent season gets a little crazy with all the preparations to make for Christmas, but that’s not what Advent is meant to be. It’s a contemplative season, meant to slow us down to really enjoy God and prepare our hearts for Christmas.
Godly Play’s lesson on Advent says Christmas is a mystery, and “a mystery is hard to enter sometimes[…] Sometimes people can walk right through a mystery and not even know it is there[…] The church learned a long time ago that people need a way to get ready to enter or even come close to a mystery like Christmas. The church set aside four weeks to get ready. This is such a great mystery that it takes that long to get ready.”
So I want to encourage you to plan ahead this year so that you can make full use of Advent as a season of heart preparation instead of logistic preparation. I would encourage you to use this time in November to get ready for all the festivities so that you can use that time (from Dec 1 through Dec 22nd) to get ready to “come close to the mystery” that is Christmas so that you “don’t walk right through it and not even realize it’s there.” Here are a five tips to make your Advent do just that!
1. Start your Christmas shopping now.
Get as much done as you can before the end of the month so that your Advent is not a season of buying and shopping and bustling about. Bonus points if you go ahead and wrap presents as you get them. Be sure to label them well so you don’t have to unwrap them later to remember who they’re for.
2. Plan out your calendar.
Put important holiday dates on the calendar, like the Children’s Christmas Pageant on December 8th. Chat with family and friends about when you’re celebrating what and with who. Set the expectations early so everyone is on the same page.
3. Let the youth help you with your holiday baking by supporting their Holiday Bake Sale.
Students will be selling baked goods and certificates for baked goods to be picked up in the future, on Sunday December 1st, 8th, and 15th, and after the Children’s Christmas Pageant. You can buy already made goods available at the table each Sunday. Or you can pick out a certificate to redeem later, even after the new year! They make great gifts, or items to take to a Christmas Party so you can skip the baking.
4. Plan your Advent Activities.
We will have Advent Devotional Booklets available November 24th. When you get them, take some time to look through them and decide ahead of time what activities or readings you will do as a family. You can even put them on your calendar to hold yourself accountable. For example, if you plan to light your advent wreath, decide if you will do it every night of the week, or only every Sunday. Or maybe you know that you will only be home on Mondays and Fridays, so plan to do it then. We will also have greens available for your Advent Wreath starting Nov 24th. If you don’t have a wreath or need to reorder candles, you can click here to order your Advent supplies.
5. Breath.
When you feel overwhelmed by all the things you’d like to do or feel that you should do to make the Advent season memorable for your children, remember to breath. Even if you only do half the activities, or forget to light the candles several times, or even misplace a present, there is grace. God’s mercies are new every morning, so allow yourself some of his grace and mercy when things inevitably go sideways halfway through the season. To borrow from Jesus’ idea of the Sabbath in Mark 2:27, Advent is made for people, not people for Advent. Let Advent serve you and your family, but don’t become too legalistic to it.