Advent in the Tropics

... in quick takes form.


1. We celebrated the first Sunday of Advent by running to the store to buy Advent candles. It’s been years since we bought new ones, but we couldn’t ship candles, so I had to throw out our old Advent stubs when we moved. Fortunately, the Exchange carries them, so we didn’t have to search around.  The Exchange also brought in Christmas trees this week. The rumor is that they are flown in on a refrigerated plane.  Although I was the original proponent of live trees when we first married, I was ready to buy an artificial one here.  Since pines and spruces don’t grow here (except ironwood trees. Everything here is evergreen, but not many conifers.) and have to be shipped express, I felt artificial might be the sustainable choice. Plus, I thought the real trees would be costly and dry. But surprise!, for $35 we got our biggest, freshest tree ever. It by far beats the spindly one we picked up a few years ago that was actually spray-painted green.

2. We also pulled from the closet our three bins of Christmas décor.  We didn’t empty them all – didn’t put anything on the tree yet - but the idea is to add a few more decorations each Sunday. The focus this past weekend was on greenery. Usually I get a pretty powerful rush hanging the greens and twining garlands. They add a jolt of drama to the brown and grey tones of the winter landscape.  But the impact was dampened this year, because, well, outside it is still so green.  I’ve even got a tomato plant and a pepper plant in bud.  I noted the incongruity of working up a sweat while hanging Christmas lights around the front porch columns, even though I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt.

Nonetheless, the lights are still a cheery sight when welcoming home the night bus after soccer practice.

3. In addition to hanging greens and setting out a few of the Christmas doo-dads, we talked after dinner about what we were going to do to prepare our hearts for Christmas. The little kids proffered that they were going to give up cookies, perhaps thinking about Lent, but they promptly forgot that offering when they made shape cookies yesterday (eaten before they could be frosted).  The older kids are supposed to talk nicely to each other and their siblings, but again that civility extends only when they are not truly irritated.

4. So instead of focusing on penitential practices, we’re doing some positive steps: in addition to the wreath, which usually is the center of drama, as kids argue over who gets to light the next candle, we have a little Advent book of prayers and reflections for kids that I’m reading in the mornings with the home school bunch.  Another tradition is the annual halfhearted decorating of the Charlie Brown Jesse tree that I made about 10 or 12 years ago.  I keep meaning to remake the felt ornaments, which are pierced on with straight pins, later becoming potential sources of tragedy as they fall onto the floor, but since my older boys helped make them, I have a sentimental attachment.  They cut and glued some of the figures. That also means it is very hard to decipher out which symbol is which, but since we usually fall off the rails with the Jesse tree about halfway through Advent, the ornaments remain. I’m hoping this year, since we’re homeschooling, that we’ll be more deliberate about reading the prophecies, especially since we don’t have an Advent calendar, a first in a while, but I couldn’t locate one here, and it’s too late to order one to be shipped. 

5. Staying up until two on cyber Monday to fill virtual shopping carts and then empty them, was not a part of my Advent plan for spiritual growth, but I realized I was ordering stuff just to order stuff, and needed to slow down, especially since I can’t do what I usually do and buy a bunch of stuff and then run take it back and then buy a bit more.

6. A better part of my plan is pulling out our Christmas books, which are a random assortment of thrift store finds, instead of legitimate Christmas classics, except the Peanuts Christmas book, which always reminds me of the Peanuts priest at Notre Dame, who always had an exemplar in his sermons from the cartoon.  And since I’m homeschooling again, we now have more time to sit and read these books together. Although we have our moments when I’m ready to ship one or more kid off to school, I have been happy with the way our early mornings have been going since we’ve been homeschooling.  I’ve been able to keep more in tune with the liturgical year, as we do a little reading each day, either about the day’s saint, or from the Book of Virtues, or from one of the art or music books we have, depending on the day, and then I read a Greek myth since we’re doing Ancient Greece for history. My 7 year old has been fascinated by the fake gods, and asked lots of questions about them.  Some days the kids do a coloring page about the lesson or draw their own picture, which is about as close to notebooking as I get.

7. I’m most enthused about our most deliberate Advent practice, which is watching Fr. Robert Barron’s Catholicism DVDs. Since the two older boys are in confirmation class this year, I felt justified in dropping the wad of dough on the movies. We’ve only watched the first 3 episodes, but they keep getting better. The first one was visually appealing, but the content was so familiar that I began to wonder if the series was over-hyped. But the two succeeding videos have improved on each other, so now I’m hooked. Even the younger kids are watching attentively.  

My conscience was piqued by Fr. Barron’s reference to Kierkegard’s statement that the saint is only concerned with one thing.  He also talked about having no ambiguity in your heart in order to achieve holiness (a quote from someone I can’t remember), but distraction and multitasking are definitely hindrances to my holiness.  I also appreciated the comparison of concupiscence with addiction, especially since I decided my own Advent penitential practice would be to limit mindless browsing of social media. (My husband would question whether I’m doing this or not, but what I have been doing is mindless shopping online – a difference!) In a weak attempt at sharing the good news, I offered to loan the series to the chaplain if he wanted to show them for the parishioners.  He sounded interested, but noncommittal, although he did ask me to help out with a dinner the chapel is trying to get together for one of the local orphanages next weekend.

I am excited about this project, and plan to get the kids to help out as much as possible, in hopes that perhaps they’ll be distracted from their Christmas lists. (The five year old’s now numbers 29 things, mostly written by her sister.  Lots of baby doll stuff, but also Gatorade and a box of chips are included.) The tropical weather has not deterred them from making Christmas cards with snowmen and evergreen trees.  It strikes me again that all the wintry Christmas décor and unit studies and even some of these Christmas books are slightly biased against equatorial regions. At least St. Nick around here wears luau prints.

As always, for more quick takes see Conversion Diary...