December 25, 2006

One of my special memories growing up was the way that my family celebrated Christmas and the Advent season.

Primarily thanks to my Mom, we consciously recognized and celebrated a month long advent. We had a daily advent calendar, with windows that opened onto a thought or scripture or, more often, an activity like making cookies, creating a new ornament, finding the tree, putting up lights, etc.

The replicas you find now for $5.99 at Trader Joes  are a weak replacement. For each new window, you get a small piece of chocolate. Not even a thought or scripture. And certainly not an experience. <!--[endif]-->Each window on our Advent calendar was a unique moment, a new day, and a shared memory that stays with me fifty years later.

From as early as I can remember until I was 10 or more years away from home. I âm proud that my family consciously celebrated both Christmas and the full Advent season. I remember how much energy, effort and spirit we each and all invested in the season;and the conscious effort we each made to find/buy/make something unique that someone else would truly enjoy.

From the time I was in junior high in Texas to the time I was married and coming home from LA (as my youngest brother was turning 18) we had a family advent service on each of the four Sunday evenings before Christmas. It was an important time for us to be together.

Early on, Mom had an advent calendar that had a window to open for each of the  25 days before Christmas, each with a scripture or an activity – bake cookies, put up the Christmas tree. Later on she settled for weekly family advent services on Sunday nights, with a scripture, shared poetry readings, hymns and a prayer.

On each advent Sunday we gathered together, with shared hymns and scriptures, and various quotes and poems drawn from Hallmark's Christmas Ideals book and elsewhere.Some of it seems a little trite in retrospect. But it was real. It still means something to me. And the world would be a much better place if more people had shared our Advent experience.

We'd light the appropriate advent candle. And, at last, a recitation divided in parts for each of the six of us. I recall something about the "cow with the broken horn" and the "babe in the manger on Christmas morn". I think Mom's part was "I was the dove in the rafters high, I cooed him to sleep, my love and I.".

Parts were assigned based on oldest to youngest, despite our arguments about who'd say the sheep part and the donkey part. Some of the details fade, but what remains clear is the sense of acceptance, support and unconditional love were rampant and unequivocal in the Lyness household, especially at Christmas. Twenty five years later, (really, 35 to 55 years later) this still sustains me. This is still what I believe.

I particularly remember thoughts my father Dick shared during the last Advent celebration we shared as a whole/extended family. It was in the Rialto house in Fresno, in 1978, the Christmas before he died. He said:

Advent doesn't wait for a convenient time or a time when we're ready. Jesus is born in the dead of winter, in a time of hardship. A struggling new family, on their way home to be enrolled and pay taxes. No room in the inn. We're not ready for the miracle, but a miracle arrives anyway. A time for new beginnings. A time for celebration and rejoicing. Each and every year, it still happens. Ready or not.