Kill-Joy or Advent Joy

Up in the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington DC, the "soft-rock" station got into the habit of playing nothing but Christmas music from the day after Thanksgiving through December 25. But sometime in October, of 2001, they started in with the all-Xmas-all-the-time playlist. It was 2001, and people were breaking the post-9/11 tension in the area by coming to Halloween parties as "safe houses." I'm a good Episcopalian, and I made a point of not listening to that station until after December 25th. And we continued our tradition of not putting up the tree until the weekend before the 25th.

But if this article is any indication, I wonder if we Episcopalians are doing too good a job of separating Advent from Christmas. Do you appreciate putting off the Christmas celebrations until the 25th, then reveling in Christmas joy for the "Twelve Days of Christmas" until the Feast of the Epiphany on January 6th? Do you like the secret pleasure of still enjoying Christmas while the rest of the world throws out the tree in exhaustion between the 25th and New Year's Day? Or do you think I'm just being a kill-joy begging you to "have yourself a dismal little Advent…"?

In all honesty, my love of Advent has as much to do with my personality quirks as theology. I was a rather happy-go-lucky kid, probably too naïve for my own good for too long. Adolescence hit me like a freight train. The emotions of joy and sadness were too much for me. I also noticed that when we visited relatives in Elmore and Coosa counties, my parents almost always had to deal with some unpleasant situation – a lawsuit involving one set of grandparents – another grandmother suffering from alcoholism. In short, I perceived the same disconnect that many people perceive, between the advertising images of happy families and my reality. And to this day I remain prone to the "Christmas Blues."

And to tell the truth, I don't think we were in any less danger of another terrorist attack in the DC area by starting the Christmas music early. One of my personal favorites in the Christmas repertoire is "Lo, how a rose e’er blooming." It's one of those slow Renaissance carols in the minor key that we moderns associate with sadness

Lo, how a rose e'er blooming,
From tender stem hath sprung!…

To show God's love aright,
She bore to us a Savior
When half spent was the night

But back when this carol was first composed, it was the minor key that people associated with joy. Life was shorter, and harder. And I think that people understood that joy did not come easy, but had to be found in the midst of life, with its passing occasions for happiness and sadness. People back then were more open to the message of the Incarnation: that God comes closest to humanity at its lowest point, not its highest.

This is not the season for covering over our problems, but for facing them squarely, and seeing a tiny light, a just budding flower that will in God's good time grow to eternity. Am I being a kill-joy? I do know from the pattern of life I have grown into as a "liturgical" Christian that I will still be singing the songs of Christmas joy on "Twelfth Night," January 5th.

I wish you all a blessed Advent.