Skip to main content

Advent Failure/Christmastide Success

So this year was going to be the year that our household went full throttle on Advent traditions. I planned the advent calendar. I planned the advent wreath. I planned the advent meals and fastings and weaving in all sorts of historic advent traditions.

And then we did none of that.

I was so busy and stressed (a good kind of stress) from getting used to new work hours, the commute and the job itself that I just couldn’t work up the energy to go gangbusters on Advent. The opportunities passed us by. We didn’t even have time to go to but one small Christmas party.

As far as Christmastide (i.e. the 12 days of Christmas which begin Christmas day and go through January 5th) and the Epiphany, we typically celebrate on Christmas day with the traditional presents and meal with family/friends and then hold an epiphany dinner on the 6th of January. The Epiphany Feast celebrates the coming of the Magi to the Christ Child.

This year I indulged in more research on the traditional celebrations of Advent & Christmastide in our Christian faith heritage and found out to my delight that celebrating over the *entire* Christmastide period is called for. As advent is traditionally a time for preparing for Christ with fasting, solemn prayers, etc, Christmastide is a time for celebrating Christ. You need more than just one day for such a glorious occasion, especially to balance out the quiet preparations of the heart over the advent weeks. Hence the TWELVE days of Christmas.

We are celebrating the 12 days of Christmas with a dinner party each evening in our home. On the second day of Christmas, we had two people at our table in total. Today is the third day of Christmas and we will have three people. And so it will continue through the 12th and final day of Christmas. Each meal will be fun and fabulous with a casual celebratory ambiance. We will still hold our traditional formal Epiphany feast on the 6th of January with the fine china, fancy food and high ceremony.

The older I get the more I find comfort and peace in Christian rituals such as these. Rituals should not substitute for faith but can add to our faith practice, pointing us toward God as we engage in them joyfully.

Labels:

Comments

Bebedores do Gondufo said…
oooO
(....).... Oooo ....
. \ ..(.....(.....)...
.. \ _)..... )../....
.......... (_/.....'m just
oooO
(....).... Oooo .... going
. \ ..(.....(.....)...
.. \ _)..... )../....
.......... (_/..... here
oooO
(....).... Oooo ....
. \ ..(.....(.....)... to
.. \ _)..... )../....
...........(_/..... you want
oooO ........
(....).... Oooo ....
. \ ..(.....(.....)...
.. \ _)..... )../.... HAPPY HOLIDAYS!
.......... (_/.....
December 30, 2010 at 8:50 PM
Anonymous said…
bebedores do i know you?
December 30, 2010 at 10:06 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Board Game Review: Hues and Cues

Last week we received Hues and Cues from The Op Games. We recently finished playing through Scooby-Doo Escape from the Haunted Mansion (a fantastic game in The Op Games catalogue designed by Jay Cormier, Sen-Foong Lim, and Kami Mandell that you should absolutely pick up to play with your family) and wanted to give another game from the same publisher a go. I picked Hues and Cues because I’ve been pleasantly surprised by other “test whether our minds think the same way” games such as The Mind   and Wavelength. In Hues and Cues , players gather around a large central board comprised of 480 graduating colors of the rainbow surrounded by an x-y axis and scoring table. White and black (which are technically not colors) are conspicuously absent as are shades (mixtures of color + black; e.g., grey) and tints (mixtures of color + white; e.g., cream).  On each player’s turn, they draw a card with four colors and the x-y axis codes of those colors depicted and they select one. They a...
3 comments
Read more

Board Game Review: Obsessed with Obsession

I'm completely obsessed with Obsession! I received a review copy of the updated second edition along with all the expansions (Wessex, Useful Man, Upstairs Downstairs) and from the moment I took everything out of the boxes, my excitement was over the top. Actually, that's not even the half of it - I remember I was already quite excited before the game even arrived. I'd wanted to get my hands on a copy as soon as I learned there was a game that brought the lifestyle that we all fell in love with watching Downton Abbey to the gaming table. Back in 2021, I was having a great time at the Dice Tower Summer Retreat and a new friend Bonnie sang the praises of Obsession. She had seen me eyeing the box on the shelf and gave me a summary of the game mechanics as she owned the first edition. She explained that the theme is centered on running an estate in Derbyshire and competing against others to have the best home, reputation, gentry guests, etc. Based on her enthusiasm and descripti...
Post a Comment
Read more

Board Game Review: Expeditions Gears of Corruption

L ast year I reviewed Expeditions and ranked it #1 among all Stonemaier games on account of the challenging intellectual puzzle it presents. This year I have played my way through the new expansion, Gears of Corruption , and I’m delighted to let you know that it makes the base game even better. That the expansion so cohesively builds on the base game should not be a surprise to anyone who closely examines the original box for Expeditions. All expansion components perfectly fit in that box including the 2 new mechs that nestle in the placeholder cubbies clearly made for them.  That can’t be coincidence. There might a few features rolled into Corruption of Gears that were developed as a result of consumer feedback on the base game (I’m looking at you, wild meeple), but my theory is that Stonemaier did a Lord of the Rings maneuver with this game and its expansions, designing the entire game with most of the additions integrated up front, and then breaking it into base + expansions fo...
Post a Comment
Read more