Well Thursday was Thanksgiving, we snowboarded all day and hung out with friends in the evening. In the US the “holiday season” started.

Christmas is corrupted. Just look around us – consumerism galore. Bucks, merchandise and more stuff eventually clutter our lives as a result of what we now call Christmas. For more people than not, Christmas is a big chow-down with some friends and family, a time to relax and feast. The relaxation is due to a frantic dash during the early weeks of December to bake, buy and impress! But what if this feast is misdirected? What if there is something more, something real and precious? Underneath the clutter and misdirection hides an Adventure – The Adventure of Advent.

I’ve never celebrated Advent, it means: “coming”. Advent is the season celebrated by the church worldwide four weeks before Christmas and it is a time of preparation. Preparing as a church and as families, a time of reading devotions together and watching. Traditionally it consists of these simple elements:

A wreath signifying God’s unending Eternity
Four candles signifying hope, peace/love, joy, Christ.

Advent is a way to redirect our hearts to the real reason for Christmas. In Advent we have the opportunity to prepare ourselves to quote from The Christmas Book by Alice Lawhead:

Certainly it is a very different thing to come to Christmas Day having
prepared for it through special Advent services at church, devotions at
home, family lighting of the candles of advent wreath, the use of a simple
Advent calendar, and a four week focus on the importance of Christ’s birth
than to wake up on Christmas morning with no such preparation, having spent
the preceding weeks thinking only of the many gifts to be purchased, cookies
to be baked, and decorations to be hung.

Why don’t you join our family as we observe the season of Advent?