There is something special about Advent. I mean, there’s something special about the feast of Christmas too, of course there is, but I’m talking about the weeks before. The waiting. The anticipation as the date comes slowly closer.
When I was growing up, Mum would buy an Advent calendar from the church piety stall every year. Are you old enough to remember this situation? It was basically just a small illustrated poster that we’d stick on the wall beside the pantry. My siblings and I would take turns in the mornings to open a door. The little cardboard flaps would fold back to reveal a tiny picture and a line of Scripture, maybe half a verse. I can’t tell you how exciting I found this. It was like nothing else. My birthday is 15 December and Mum always arranged it so that I could open a little cardboard door on my birthday. On Christmas Eve, there were two doors.
Every shelf in my house is elf-free. Call me Scrooge, but there is no weird-looking, pointy-hat-clad toy writing letters and getting up to odd shenanigans every night at my house. No. No thank you.
I had a look, but it seems you can’t buy this kind of Advent calendar anymore. And I’m not really interested in the sort you can get these days, those boxy ones all emblazoned with pop culture superstars and full of hard little chocolates that taste vaguely of soap. They’re not the same.
While I’m at it, every shelf in my house is elf-free. Call me Scrooge, but there is no weird-looking, pointy-hat-clad toy writing letters and getting up to odd shenanigans every night at my house. No. No thank you. As it happens, one of my children is already far too invested in all-things-Father-Christmas. Last week, she asked me with concern about the working conditions of the elves in Santa’s workshop. Are they paid a fair wage? Do they get rest breaks? I’m pretty certain the thought of a resident elf watching her every move and carefully documenting behaviours for evaluation would be too much for her overthinking mind to take on.
So while we don’t have Advent calendars and we don’t have a household spy, our house isn’t entirely free of Advent tradition. At some point, when my eldest children were quite small, I got it into my head that we should have an Advent wreath (I’m a fun mum, you see). We could put it on the table and light a new candle each week. I wasn’t clear on the details. I wasn’t clear about any of it. But I had good intentions. The wreath was a bunch of cuttings on a plate. It was a tangled mess of rosemary and twine. It was a warped coathanger sparsely dressed in strips of plastic bags. It was a piece of illustrated cardboard. It was a nice wooden wreath from Kmart. The candles were scented. They were unscented. They were white pillars coloured with purple and pink Sharpies. They were tall candlesticks. They were coloured tea lights in glass holders. Even this year, I was running around at the start of December trying to source a pink candle to go with my three purple ones. You’d think I’d have it sorted by now.
The tree is supposed to look higgledy-piggledy. It is supposed to tremble slightly under the weight of half-a-kilometre of tinsel concentrated mostly on the bottom lefthand side. That’s how the tree is supposed to look. Don’t twitch.
I’m not sure why I thought that anything about this idea would work for me. Consistency is not my strength. There were some years when I forgot to even light a candle. I might not have even unpacked the wreath from the big clear box in the shed, though to be fair, I was probably up to my eyeballs in newborns at the time.
And we do decorate a Christmas tree. Does this count as an Advent tradition? Some years in our house it might even extend to a Lenten tradition. I’ve learnt to let go of any sense of the aesthetic, of balance or form, when it comes to decorating the tree. The tree is supposed to look higgledy-piggledy. It is supposed to tremble slightly under the weight of half-a-kilometre of tinsel concentrated mostly on the bottom lefthand side. That’s how the tree is supposed to look. Don’t twitch.
A young couple with a newborn baby and a bounding labradoodle have moved into the house across the road from us. I watch one morning, coffee in hand, as the young mother stands in the front window of her house and carefully decorates a tree with little white lights and carved ornaments in various shades of blond wood. All this week, as I dash out the front door carrying spare sunhats and forgotten school bags, as I walk back inside carrying bulging shopping bags, I will pause to look at the tree. I will smile. I’ll smile because it really is a beautiful tree. It looks Myer catalogue–worthy. But I’ll also smile because the poor lady has no idea what she’s in for once that baby gets bigger and starts to voice her own opinions on how the tree should be decorated!
My children are clamouring to do the Advent wreath. Somehow over the years, despite my ham-fisted approach, this tradition gathered its own momentum.
And it’s more than that. This new mum doesn’t even know what her family’s Christmas traditions will be yet. It’s all ahead of her. I bet she thinks she knows. I bet she has plans. There is so much pressure on parents these days to establish traditions. We must make this season magical for our children at all costs. She doesn’t realise that family traditions will establish themselves anyway. It’s okay.
I bring my coffee back inside. My children are clamouring. They want to do the Advent wreath. Somehow over the years, despite my ham-fisted approach, this tradition gathered its own momentum. Because now it is a Thing. Now my children rush to set it up and press me to light the candle every morning, to sing the little song. I bring out the matches and we sing.
Light one candle for hope!
One bright candle for hope!
He brings hope to every heart
He comes! He comes!
My youngest, my small overthinker, blows out the purple candle and I smile.
Some things really are worth the wait.