Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
Earlier in November, I decided I was going to spend a year looking deeply into the liturgical calendar. I’ve been excited by the idea of actually spending Advent (starts December 2 this year) focusing on the longing and hope and expectation of the season, then going into full-on Christmas-celebration-mode from December 25 to January 5 (the 12 Days of Christmas).
I didn’t fully realize what that would mean for my “usual” Christmas traditions.
I. LOVE. CHRISTMAS. I’m one of those crazy people who stalks a few specific radio stations, waiting for the day they begin playing 24-hour Christmas music (one of them started November 1st this year, hurray!).
When I was young, my dad would go away deer hunting for a week. On opening day, November 15, my mom and I would get everything out to decorate the house for Christmas (except the tree, that was a tradition for a December weekend). The house was full of red bows and angels by the time he came back home.
My husband is one who prefers to keep Christmas music and decorating for December… We’ve compromised by letting Thanksgiving weekend be the start of the Christmas season.
And now I’m faced with a dilemma.
If I want Advent to truly be a time of reflection and anticipation for what’s coming, when do I put up Christmas decorations? When do I listen to Christmas music?
In my mulling over of ideas the past few weeks, I’ve come up with two that I think are going to work out:
- I love Christmas music. There’s no getting around that. So I’m allowing myself to indulge during the month of November, but come December 2 I’m going to do my best to only listen to Advent playlists (like this one).
- If I can convince my husband 😉 I want to get a real tree this year. But I want to decorate it slowly. Maybe the first Sunday of Advent we get the tree. The second Sunday we put up lights. The third Sunday we put up ornaments. Or something like that. (follow me on Instagram, I guarantee I’ll be chronicling that journey!)
I love this thought from The Nester this week:
The season changes outside are a slow transition. There’s no reason to have to makeover your home from top to bottom with bins of “seasonal decor” all day this Saturday. Unless you want to, in which case, of course you should!
I’m still not sure where putting out my other Christmas-y decorations fits into Advent. We don’t have much, but my kids have already been asking if we’re going to get the nativities and stockings and Christmas books out this weekend.
I don’t have an easy answer. I want us to be able to enjoy these things, but still keep the spirit of Advent… Maybe we put them up this weekend after all, before Advent even starts? Or incorporate it into our Advent activities during December? Or really push it and wait until Christmas Eve??
(A monkey wrench for that last possibility: we will only be home for 4 of the 12 days of Christmas, thanks to an extended family vacation. So it’s not like we’ll even be around to enjoy all-things-Christmas for the full, true Christmastide season…)
When do you usually put up your Christmas decorations? And when do you take them down?
One thing we do is to set up the nativity early in December, but we don’t put Jesus in the manger until Christmas morning. The shepherds and wisemen start far away from the nativity scene and make their way closer throughout Advent. The only tricky thing is remembering where you stash baby Jesus…one year we didn’t find him until the next Advent!