How do you focus on Christ during Advent and Christmas?

[milimac]

Please share what you are doing during this season to make Advent and Christmas more meaningful.

 

[Lorrie]

What I’ve done this year is I actually did all my Christmas shopping in early November that way I wouldn’t be distracted with all the material things. This has helped me focus on the true reason for the season. I also purchased my first Advent wreath and I have a nativity scene in each room in my home, a wonderful reminder of what Christmas is all about.

 

[puzzleannie]

returning to daily prayer of LOTH at the principal hours, including Office of Readings.

extreme reduction of Christmas spending, mutually agreed upon with the entire family (the girls are relieved, and the grandkids know that the simple Advent items they received with some lovely handmade Christmas ornaments are their only gifts, and that we will all be saving our money for what has become an annual Christmas in July family get-together in some resort). The baby doesn’t care, he got his gifts when I visited (new jacket, boots, hat and mittens).

 

[contemplative]

For the family…I have a few Advent/Christmas prayer books in a bread basket on the dining table. There is also a simple and small advent wreath. The nativity is placed out and I try to refrain from all decorations until Christmas Eve.

As for myself…I use the short daylight and long dark hours of December to help me reflect on the waiting…the waiting and the magnificence of He who loved us so much He came into this darkness…this inhospitable darkness.

When Christmas arrives the house will be brightened and enlivened to reflect Christ’s entrance into this world.

Throughout the Advent and Christmas season I will look for opportunities to give of myself to others in ways Jesus asks us to.

 

[little_flower_1]

contemplative:

For the family…I have a few Advent/Christmas prayer books in a bread basket on the dining table. There is also a simple and small advent wreath. The nativity is placed out and I try to refrain from all decorations until Christmas Eve.

As for myself…I use the short daylight and long dark hours of December to help me reflect on the waiting…the waiting and the magnificence of He who loved us so much He came into this darkness…this inhospitable darkness.

When Christmas arrives the house will be brightened and enlivened to reflect Christ’s entrance into this world.

Throughout the Advent and Christmas season I will look for opportunities to give of myself to others in ways Jesus asks us to.

i really like the ‘not decorating until Christmas eve’ thing. i’m soo stealing it.

 

[flameburns623]

I’m Anglican, not Catholic but here are some of the things I do, depending on how busy I am in a given season.

1. I steal a page from Oral Roberts, who claimed some years ago to have gotten a ‘word’ from God to read all four Gospels and the Book of Acts through, slowly, aloud, and on one’s knees, three times in thirty days. The formula to do this: 3 chapters daily of Matthew, Luke, John, and Acts along with 2 chapters of Mark. (Or, just read 14 chapters a day). Since Anglicans do Morning and Evening devotions, I just do 7 chapters in the Morning and 7 in the evening. Frankly–I usually get through the Gospels and Acts only about 1 1/2 times at best, but still the discipline enriches one’s walk.
2. Read one of the biographies of Christ. Catholics will recognize Fulton Sheen’s Life of Christ, but there are numbers of others as well. I have read EG White’s Desire of Ages, which is surprisingly good. (White is an Adventist, so there are naturally things one needs to gloss over. Nevertheless, I think this is one of the most faith-affirming biographies of Christ extant.
3. I own a number of videos on the life of Christ as well. Again, none are perfect but each brings to mind aspects of Christ which otherwise are so easy to forget and/or overlook. After all the reason we have a liturgical calendar is to remind ourselves in a systematic fashion of the basics of the Faith.
4. Not infrequently I simply rededicate myself to being more faithful in observing Mornng and Evening Prayers. As with most people, maintaining a rigourous prayer life amid the busyness of life is often difficult. And yes, too often I let things like the Internet eat up time I could be more constructively using in prayer and meditation. So Advent and Lent are times when I try to renew myself in devotion and zeal.