Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Advent vs. Christmas

If I'm building an authentically Catholic home, I want to do it right.

I'm struggling with Advent. Will this be "that year when Mom wouldn't let us decorate the tree till Christmas Eve?" What will we listen to, if not our favorite carols?

Frankly, I don't see us chanting Rorate Caeli around the dinner table.


(The Schola Cantorum of Corpus Christi Cathedral)

My heart tells me that the wait would be worth it. This quotation from Catholic Culture rings too true:

"Families, who would not dream of eating their Thanksgiving turkey a week in advance or of having their 4th of July picnic in June, give no thought to the fact that, when they awake on December 25, there is not a shred of Christmas left. Every present has been opened. Every carol has been sung. The tree has dried out. Christmas is apt to be a dull day given to over-eating.

There was no fast in Advent, so it follows that there can be no feast."

(Read the rest of that article here.)
Posted by Meredith at 4:54 PM
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4 comments:

  1. Last year we gave up meat for Advent (at home, not if we were invited out and were offered meat), as we did for Lent. We also compromised on the tree. We still decorated it during the season, but left the lights turned off until Christmas Eve. And we do try to listen more often to Advent carols (there is a collection of them I bought off iTunes). I sometimes listen to the Christmas music before Christmas though, because I do love it.

    This year I am thinking about doing an plain wreath for the front door with purple ribbons and switching them out for Christmas.
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  2. I think you were very brave to give up meat! We could not do that, but an even greater sacrifice for us would be to give up carbs. (And probably impossible, during December, anyway.)

    I have an idea of what we are giving up, but I will wait till next week to tell you : )

    Today we realized that the tree question has answered itself! The little one is still pulling up on everything within reach. A tree full of ornaments is out of the question. So, we will put up our tree the day before Christmas and decorate with white lights and origami.
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  3. You could play up the excitement of preparing for Christmas by working on folding a special origami ornament every day of Advent.

    Personally, I think giving up sugar would be much harder than meat.
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  4. Oh, good idea on the origami!
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