It takes going into
a CVS drugstore, asking an employee where they have their Advent
calendars and being met with a blank stare and a quizzical "an
Advent calendar?" to realize that yes, Virginia, we live in a
post-Christian era and there is no Santa Claus.
Don't get me wrong.
I'm not a conservative evangelical trying to "put Christ back in
Christmas." I have other reasons for shopping for an Advent
calendar (more on this later), but still, I am shocked.
It's as if I went up
to a hot-dog stand and asked for a frankfurter and got "a
frankfurter?" as a startled reply. The glue that holds a
society together is a body of common knowledge that needs no
explanation.
It wasn't that long
ago that most people knew—as they had for about 1,500 years—that
Advent is the season before Christmas. Named from the Latin adventus,
meaning "coming," the season is observed by Christian
churches in preparation for the feast of the birth of Jesus,
traditionally celebrated by a Mass on that day, known in medieval
England as Christesmas.
You knew at least some part of this, right?
You knew at least some part of this, right?
Of course, there
never was a Santa Claus, and one could debate whether there was a
Jesus of Nazareth. If there was, he was certainly born one unknown
day. In the second century of our era those in the know thought he
had been born in the summer, say June. The celebration of Christmas,
one of the lesser and most recent of the feasts in the Christian
calendar, was purposely assigned a day in the middle of solstice
debauchery associated with pagan and Roman gods.
Just as Lent was
marked early on as a period of expectation for Easter—historically
the first and most important of the Christian feasts—Advent came
into being as a period of awaiting Christmas, beginning on the fourth
Sunday before Christmas.
The Advent calendar
is a Lutheran tradition, mostly for children. Physically it is a
large rectangular card with 25 "windows," one for each day
of December leading up to Christmas and one for the feast itself.
Some have little boxes with candy or trinkets behind each
window.
Like the Christmas tree it is not, strictly speaking, a Christian artifact. It's just, as a Jewish friend of mine said, one more item in a "heavily accessorized religion."
Like the Christmas tree it is not, strictly speaking, a Christian artifact. It's just, as a Jewish friend of mine said, one more item in a "heavily accessorized religion."
Why does someone who
vaguely believes in God, go out looking for an Advent calendar?
Because the idea of awaiting the birth of some presence of God is
pleasant, even if it is only in one's heart, and even if it is based
on an unproven, largely mythical, story. So sue me.
Now, does anyone
know where I can find an Advent calendar?
3 comments:
In Germany
P.S.
I have an old one, 15 or 20 years old, dusty and with crumbs of mold chocolate in the little pockets, but I can send it to you as a Christmas present: you know, with the crisis we are living an era of austerity.
I can't believe that you couldn't find an Advent calendar! As a kid, a new advent calendar was a must, every year. Or we made our own.
Now, some of the UK online newspapers still feature Advent calendars (well, at least the Guardian does).
Anyway, why not make your own?
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