waiting

Somewhere between Thanksgiving and December 1, it occurred to me that what I love most about Christmas is the waiting. In fact, the 25 days leading up to and culminating in the baby in a manger are perhaps my favorite 25 days of the year. Each of these days is filled with intention, a deliberately slower pace (at least internally), joyful anticipation and a lot of reflection (not to mention a guilt-free increase in sugar, flour and chocolate). I relish the sight of twinkling outdoor lights popping up around the neighborhood and the smells of pine, hot cider and, did I mention, sugar, flour and chocolate. I stretch out in these days and soak them up.

For my six year old, however, waiting hurts. It is agony. Everything centers around the main event.

To ease the over-eager anticipation, we feed the waiting with chocolate, crafts, activities and daily readings that bring us closer to each other and the One we wait for. Some of our waiting traditions have a long history and some are newly discovered or created. Here are some things we're doing during these 25 days of Christmas:

:: Moving Santa from pocket to pocket on an Advent Calendar my grandma made for her own Advent celebrations many, many years ago.

:: Opening a door a day in our wonderful book called The Advent Book. (Thank you, Deb and Randy!) Such amazing doors revealing the Christmas story bit by bit, it seems new and surprising ever year.

:: Checking the Advent House each morning for a small treat (most often chocolate) and a note announcing a special event of the day - everything from Christmas movie night to ornament making to coloring a Christmas picture to taking cookies to our lonely neighbor. This tradition is Liam's favorite.

:: Making magnetic number ornaments for a magnetic tree. I got this idea from an advent calendar my friend Liita made three years ago. I think of it every year and never find time to make it before December 1. This year I decided to make it as we go through Advent and then pull it back out and use it in following years as more of a calendar. Like Liita I used an old cookie sheet. I painted ours white and then painted a large Christmas tree on it. We are making one ornament a day using found objects and glueing them to small round magnets. For instance, for December 1 we decided on a penny since it's 1 cent and it represents something we need to give up thinking about and worrying about so we can focus more on Jesus. December 2 is a two-holed button. December 3 is going to be, drumroll please...a number 3.

:: Dipping into Watch for the Light: Readings for Christmas and Advent. Bonhoeffer, Nouwen, Merton, T. S. Eliot, Kathleen Norris. I pull it out every year and I find something new every time. I never get tired of it.

:: Distilling the Christmas story day by day with our version of the Jesse Tree devotionals. The one created this year by Ann Voskamp at A Holy Experience is wonderful but a little old for my kids. I pick out the theme and we talk about it in a way they understand.

:: Following the Advent Blog Tour. As part of a work project I came up with this tour idea and found all the bloggers to bring it to life. With Andrew's help I even pulled off the website. The more I've gotten to know the bloggers, the more I have become excited about what each day's reflection will hold.

Advent, I learned once, means "coming." And here we are waiting throughout it. I yell to my kids 100 times a day, "I'm coming!" "I'm coming in a minute." "I'm coming right now." And they sit and wait. I guess that's one way to imagine it - God tells his people, "I'm coming, I'm sending myself to you." And his people sit and wait. And, like a bunch of six year olds, we get anxious with anticipation. Or frustrated. Or bored.

Lately, I've been seeing Advent a different way. God is constantly in the process of coming to us, revealing himself to us, meeting us where we are. And we actively wait. We look for glimpses. We create beautiful things. We savor the moments. We give and receive love. In our finest hour, we live with such intention and purpose and joy that we know His coming even while we wait. And when the big day arrives it's like we've been there all along. 25 days out of 365 waiting like this. It's a lofty goal and it's just a start.