Its Advent, Charlie Brown

Chers Amis,

I can be a bit of a Scrooge - or a Charlie Brown around the holidays. I am not materialistic by nature and sometimes it seems Lucy Van Pelt is right when she says, "Look, Charlie, let's face it. We all know that Christmas is a big commercial racket. It's run by a big eastern syndicate, you know." It is easy to feel overwhelmed by the barrage of circulars and advertisements, weighed down by society's Sally Brown attitude of,"All I want is what I have coming to me. All I want is my fair share." To quote Snoopy after kissing Lucy[sticking his tongue out], "BLAHHHH!" Humbug.

But this year I am not humbuggy. I am in the spirit and excited about Advent, so full of expectation and promise. Why? In large part because I started preparing early this year, focusing on the true meaning of the season. Is all my shopping done? Have I mailed a single Christmas card? Have I decorated the house? No, no and no. But what I have done, made a few fun gifts, shopped online, bought fabric for next week's place mat project, scrounged the house for tins and empty cans for ornaments and luminaries, reserved books on St. Nicholas, and selected tags from the parish Giving Tree , I have done with an attitude of love. Love and peace with imperfection and the half-finished.

So often in the past I have gotten caught up in doing everything 100% and have felt like a failure when, of course, I couldn't meet my own expectations. Does this sound familiar? Blessings to all the ladies at O Night Divine, the 4RealLearning Forums and in the various Loveliness Fairs. Not only for your ideas and inspirations, but for your humor, for sharing when things didn't work out, for being human and humble and real. Isn't that what this season is all about? Even our Lord came to us as such - human, humble and real. Lucy and Sally's Christmas may be showy and bright and worthy of Martha Stewart, but I'm more comfortable in the stable. It's warm and true - and only a few weeks away.

-- Marjorie


PS - Leonie had this quote by Fr. Andrew Greeley on her Loveliness of Advent post and it really spoke to me:

"It might be easy to run away to a monastery, away from the commercialization, the hectic hustle, the demanding family responsibilities of Christmas-time. Then we would have a holy Christmas. But we would forget the lesson of the Incarnation, of the enfleshing of God—the lesson that we who are followers of Jesus do not run from the secular; rather we try to transform it. It is our mission to make holy the secular aspects of Christmas just as the early Christians baptized the Christmas tree. And we do this by being holy people—kind, patient, generous, loving, laughing people—no matter how maddening is the Christmas rush…"