Advent: the time of arriving, the beginning of the Church’s year, a season of preparation that concludes on Christmas Eve. Pope Francis tells us that Advent “begins a time of consolation and hope. A new liturgical year begins, which brings with it the novelty of our God, who is the ‘God of all consolation’. I wish you to experience Advent thus, as a time of consoling novelty, and joyous waiting.”
It is of course a time of consolation and hope, though it’s also worth remembering that the readings of Advent look forward not just to the first coming of the Lord as a baby, but to His second coming, as a Judge. But the Pope is right that the waiting is joyous, because we know that that there will be a birth at the end of it: the baby Son of Man.
But a time of anticipation isn’t a time of celebration; the mood of looking forward, of arriving, isn’t the same as the explosive joy when the birthday finally happens. Yet in advanced consumer economies such as ours, that is exactly what happens. The entire retail sector is premised on the notion that the Christmas season should be underway as soon as humanly possible. In many British stores, Christmas gift ranges were on display before Halloween, more than a month before Advent actually started.
All the Christmas lights in London were switched on by mid-November. The intention is to get us to start Christmas spending as early as possible; the outcome is to make most of us jaded with sparkles, Santa colours, cinnamon scent and Nutcrackers several weeks before Christmas begins. Office Christmas lunches that start in November mean that we’re well and truly inured to turkey (avian flu in Europe allowing) long before Christmas Day.
What remains of Advent is Advent calendars, which are now no longer little windows on a cardboard winter scene, leading to the final revelation of a manger on 25 December. Instead, they’re now an occasion for 24 days of consumption, from beer bottles to pork scratchings to fragrance and skincare. The Christian Dior Advent calendar this year costs £470. It is a parody of Advent.
Even Catholic countries such as Italy – where the local equivalent of Santa Claus, the Befana or Christmas witch, arrives at Epiphany – have started to succumb to the US version of Christmas, which is an extension of the Thanksgiving season, exactly a month beforehand.
This is quite literally a spoiler. It doesn’t just reveal the ending of the story, it means that when we finally arrive at it, we’re jaded, ready for the next thing: the season of fast and abstinence that arrives on 1 January, when we’re still right in the middle of the Twelve Days of Christmas. We are, quite simply, incapable of inhabiting the present moment.
The counter to all this is the other relatively new Advent tradition, the Christmas charity appeals. This year the Advent appeal for CAFOD, the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development, is for communities affected by flooding. Other charities that attract support in Advent are homelessness organisations such as The Passage, which find a particular resonance in the story of the Christ Child, whose parents found nowhere to stay. The innkeeper who turned away Mary and Joseph has a number of parallels in our own time.
But the Advent season does have scope for celebration. The feast of Saint Nicholas, the original Santa Claus, falls on 6 November. In the Netherlands, from where the custom and the saint went to the US, we have the original gift giver: the bishop-saint whose present of gold coins, delivered anonymously to a family of poor girls, meant that they were able to afford money for dowries. Preserving girls from prostitution is not only an historic problem. On the night of 5 December, good Dutch children still may find little presents left in their shoes. If we want a feast to celebrate before Christmas, then let’s celebrate St Nicholas. He has tradition and history on his side.
It would be churlish to expect Catholics to keep Advent as a period of fast and abstinence when everyone around them is holding Christmas parties, but it would be good if we were able perhaps to abstain from meat for the season, or even more heroically, drink. If not, then we can and should be thinking of those who, like Mary and Joseph, have nowhere to stay, and contributing to their relief.
The Christmas season, let’s remember, starts on Christmas Eve and carries on for twelve full days until the Three Kings come at Epiphany. Then it winds down slowly until Candlemas. If we really keep up the spirit of Advent, then, when the time comes, we shall enjoy Christmas in all its fullness.
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