How to properly celebrate Advent and Christmas?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Son_of_Jonah
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
S

Son_of_Jonah

Guest
Happy belated Thanksgiving to all! Not sure if this is the best place to ask this question, but I figured it couldn’t be the worst.

How do (or should) we celebrate Advent and Christmas? I know the secular method is generally to start listening to Christmas music sometime in November, from as early as November 1st to the day after Thanksgiving, but my wife and I (married for a year and a half, with a beautiful 6 MO baby girl) are living far from our parents this year, and when we first started talking about how best to celebrate Christmas, we decided that we wanted to make a concerted effort to celebrate Advent as Advent and Christmas as Christmas.

My question, simply put, is how could we best do this, practically speaking? Does anyone here have particular traditions or methods when it comes to putting up decorations, when to get the tree, when to listen to Christmas music, what kind of Christmas music to listen to, how to buy and give gifts without it becoming a distraction, etc?

I read a wonderful article on the subject at thosecatholicmen.com sometime over the summer, but when they revamped their site, many of the older articles were removed or archived and I can’t find it, so I’ve been trying to find practical ways to make this Advent and Christmas season an actual religious experience, something that helps draw us closer to our Lord. Any tips or suggestions would be very much appreciated!
 
My husband and I have a 5 year old child. On the first Sunday of advent I put up our advent calendar (it’s a big box that’s decorated with our blessed mother holding baby Jesus) I put that up on our mantel and fill it up with chocolate. I also put our nativity set up on our mantel and we decorate our mantel with Christmas lights. I bring out our advent wreath and put it on our kitchen table. Everyday after dinner we light our wreath and pray and read short bible readings that’s designated from an advent devotional that I have. Then after prayers we have chocolate from our calendar.

On the feast of Saint Nicholas we get and decorate our Christmas tree.

On Christmas day we go to mass. Then after mass my son gets to open his stocking. We open presents after Christmas dinner, we have grandparents come over and we open presents all together as a family. Besides the small things that I put in my son’s stocking, I only personally buy 3 presents for my boy to unwrap. We don’t do santa in my house, I never believed in Santa growing up and my husband is not American, santa is not a big deal to him either. This year I found a gift giving program to buy Christmas presents for foster kids and for elderly people who live in nursing homes. Im taking my son to the store so we can get a few presents for those people. For the most part I don’t think that we get overboard on presents at all.

As far as holiday music goes we have it playing now. I never really payed attention to when is the right time to listen to it.
 
Given that I come from a non-Catholic background that started celebrating Christmas on December 1 (okay, it can be back-tracked to the day after Thanksgiving, but anything having to do with Black-Friday shopping is oh-you-tee OUT), it is difficult for me to make a difference between Advent and Christmas. Another difficulty is the fact that there is Christmas music to be practiced (or I’ll really screw it up on the day), Christmas concerts to be played, etc.

So – I don’t bother. As far as I am concerned, it’s all Christmas. Deck the halls! Joy to the world! Dahoo damus! 😃
 
👍
DaveBj said:
Given that I come from a non-Catholic background that started celebrating Christmas on December 1 (okay, it can be back-tracked to the day after Thanksgiving, but anything having to do with Black-Friday shopping is oh-you-tee OUT), it is difficult for me to make a difference between Advent and Christmas. Another difficulty is the fact that there is Christmas music to be practiced (or I’ll really screw it up on the day), Christmas concerts to be played, etc.

So – I don’t bother. As far as I am concerned, it’s all Christmas. Deck the halls! Joy to the world! Dahoo damus! 😃
Click to expand...
👍
 
Celebrate with scripture from the advent liturgy…there is so much to be learned and contemplated about this very important and often overlooked liturgical season.
 
Millie123 said:
My husband and I have a 5 year old child. **On the first Sunday of advent I put up our advent calendar **(it’s a big box that’s decorated with our blessed mother holding baby Jesus) I put that up on our mantel and fill it up with chocolate. I also put our nativity set up on our mantel and we decorate our mantel with Christmas lights. I bring out our advent wreath and put it on our kitchen table. Everyday after dinner we light our wreath and pray and read short bible readings that’s designated from an advent devotional that I have. Then after prayers we have chocolate from our calendar.

On the feast of Saint Nicholas we get and decorate our Christmas tree.

On Christmas day we go to mass. Then after mass my son gets to open his stocking. We open presents after Christmas dinner, we have grandparents come over and we open presents all together as a family. Besides the small things that I put in my son’s stocking, I only personally buy 3 presents for my boy to unwrap. We don’t do santa in my house, I never believed in Santa growing up and my husband is not American, santa is not a big deal to him either. This year I found a gift giving program to buy Christmas presents for foster kids and for elderly people who live in nursing homes. Im taking my son to the store so we can get a few presents for those people. For the most part I don’t think that we get overboard on presents at all.

As far as holiday music goes we have it playing now. I never really payed attention to when is the right time to listen to it.
Click to expand...
I like this, Millie. 👍

The parts in bold remind me of my childhood. My sister & I would argue about who got to light the candles, & who got to open the calendar door on Christmas. 😃
 
I was just reading a parish e-newsletter which has this to say about Advent:

“Advent is a holy and penitential season. It is a time of expectant waiting and preparation for the celebration of the Nativity of Jesus at Christmas.”

This will be my first Advent/Christmas as a Catholic and I intend to celebrate it by minimising the commercial aspect of Christmas and remembering what its really all about (“Christ’s Mass”). For me, this means daily Mass every day without exception from now (started this week) until after Christmas, regular confession and more effort to examine my conscience and drive out as much sin from my life as possible. Advent at my parish will start on Sunday with an Ordinariate Advent Lessons and Carols and end with what I’m sure will be a very beautiful Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve.
 
peter26 said:
I was just reading a parish e-newsletter which has this to say about Advent:

“Advent is a holy and penitential season. It is a time of expectant waiting and preparation for the celebration of the Nativity of Jesus at Christmas.”

This will be my first Advent/Christmas as a Catholic and I intend to celebrate it by minimising the commercial aspect of Christmas and remembering what its really all about (“Christ’s Mass”). For me, this means daily Mass every day without exception from now (started this week) until after Christmas, regular confession and more effort to examine my conscience and drive out as much sin from my life as possible. Advent at my parish will start on Sunday with an Ordinariate Advent Lessons and Carols and end with what I’m sure will be a very beautiful Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve.
Click to expand...
👍
 
We do an Advent wreath which we light every night before dinner as we sing an Advent song.

No set date for when Christmas music, tree up, etc happen - with busy schedules and work craziness, it gets done when it happens. Decorating and shopping and baking are all part of the preparation and fit the theme of Advent, imho.

The biggest thing we wish to do (but haven’t managed to change yet due to family/friends resistance) is that we’d love to move all the parties and exchanges and get togethers into the days of Christmas (25th thru Jan 6th) rather than trying to get ready for Christmas (both spiritually and practically) while at the same time being asked to celebrate Christmas at these get-togethers.

Like I said, it’s a pretty hard concept for most people I know - most seem to start so early that by the time Christmastime arrives, they are already sick of it and think it should be over (when in truth, it’s just begun).

Anyway - best wishes to you as you start on this journey!
 
We keep it simple - an Advent wreath on the table, a kids’ Advent calendar, and Nativity scene on our family altar. Mary and Joseph travel through our living room to get there, Jesus arrives on Christmas, and then we start the wise men on their travels. 😉

The other Christmas decorations start coming out around the third week, including the tree. I’m trying to convince my husband to wait to light it until Christmas Eve, but we’ll see if I’m successful. 😛

I think Advent can be done a lot of ways - it’s more about the mindset than the details. And of course, lots of prayer!
 
I put the Advent wreath on the door and on the table (that one has candles that are lit during meals). I play Advent carols, do the Jesse tree with the children, and read the Bible. I avoid Christmas tack as much as possible, including parties.

The children like the customs of St Nicholas day. They get sweets form the saint, and a dry twig from Krampus 🙂 My granny did this for me when I was little.

I think that the mindset is the most important thing during Advent. Preparing for Jesus’ second coming has equal importance as the nativity, and we should focus on that. There are many materials on the internet about meditations and readings that are appropriate for this season.
 
I love listening to the first half of Handel’s Messiah during Advent–all those prophecies about the coming of Christ!

I also have a much-loved Advent wreath we use every year, and ditto a nativity set to which I add a piece or two every Advent. I set both of those up on the first Sunday of Advent, though Jesus doesn’t go in the manger until Christmas Day.
 
Simcha Fisher says, “This year, there’s no time to recover from Thanksgiving before it’s time to dive into Advent. Luckily, the thing about celebrating Advent is that, by definition, you have to keep it simple. A lush, lavish, complicated Advent makes about as much sense as a simple, understated fireworks display on the Fourth of July.”

“Some people keep Advent as a “little Lent” — not as stringent as actual Lent, but still a season of preparation and penance, as we anticipate Christmas day. I can’t hack this, at least not as a family. It’s too hard to do all the baking and shopping and decorating that really has to be done in December, and also practice self-denial and penance. If I manage to prepare for Christmas without making life miserable for the family, I’ll count that as a spiritual win.”

aleteia.org/blogs/simchafisher/advent-is-at-our-throats/

Those are very good points.

Like an upthread poster, I also love Handel’s Messiah.

In our family, we traditionally play what I call “Christmas tree chicken.” Namely, my husband doesn’t want us to have a tree until the last minute. This has led to almost not getting a tree, as well as to some Charlie Brown Christmas trees, but it has also led to some amazing bargains. The safer option is probably getting the tree 3+ days before Christmas and then keeping it outside in a bucket with water and putting it up the day before Christmas Eve. Then the tree gets decorated on Christmas Eve. Christmas Eve tends to be a bit of a crunch, as we need to both get the tree decorated and prepare a traditionalish Polish Wigilia by the time the first star is visible.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wigilia

On reflection, some of the crunch could be improved by wrapping presents a day or two earlier and putting up the Nativity on UbiCaritas’s schedule.

The last year or two, we’ve turned over the tree decorating to the big kids and last year I believe my husband did the bulk of the Wigilia cooking, which was AMAZING. Christmas Eve normally just about kills me.

We would find Christmas Eve overloaded if we did tree, the big dinner, presents and Mass all in the same day. I really like doing Christmas morning Mass with the kids to fill out Christmas Day better.

One new thing that is happening this year is that our teenage daughter has made enough practice with her ukulele music that she’s been working on ukulele Christmas carols and sounding pretty good, so we’re probably going to have a lot of homemade Christmas music this year. (I just asked her to give us a Christmas concert at home over Christmas and she says yes.)

We also do a yearly photobook for our families that documents the past year at our house as our extended families are far away.
 
Xantippe said:
In Poland and Slovakia, the tradition is to buy your Christmas Eve carp LIVE and keep it live in the bathtub until the big day.

npr.org/sections/thesalt/2014/12/22/372088391/in-slovakia-christmas-dinner-starts-in-the-bathtub

thefisheriesblog.com/2012/12/10/the-christmas-carp-in-my-bathtub/

Upon emigrating, my husband’s family decided that salmon makes a very nice Christmas Eve dinner instead.

I totally agree.
Click to expand...
We do the Italian seven fishes, but I think a few of them are substitutes as well. - thank goodness.

Don’t forget too that there are some great feast days in December. For the Immaculate Conception we eat all white food (easy for anyone who grew up only eating neutrally colored food, as I did :D), Mexican for St Juan Diego and/or Our Lady of Guadalupe, saffron rolls or cinnamon buns and hardboiled eggs for St. Lucy, and of course there’s tons of stuff for St. Nicholas.

I tend to focus on food stuff simply because it’s an easy way to communicate “This is special” to kids. We do evening prayer as a family so that’s always tied to the day and season. There’s also the O Antiphons and Jesse Tree as Advent traditions.:eek:
 
Thank you all for the replies, there are some really awesome suggestions here! It’s definitely a work in progress, so it may be several years before we get it down, especially as more and more kids come along! Again, thanks for the responses, and keep 'em coming if you have more to add. I think this thread could be a really cool way of learning about the wonderful variety of Advent and Christmas traditions than help make our Catholic faith so catholic!
 
One thing we always did as kids, and I did with mine, was keeping one Christmas gift unwrapped until Epiphany, to commemorate the Magi bringing gifts to the Christ Child. I always loved that, and it “stretched” Christmas out over the entire 12 days. 🙂

Our Magi in our Nativity scene also travels around our living room until Epiphany.
 
[sarcasm alert]

Our parish did it up really big yesterday. About half of the homily time, and one of the four hymns.

[/sarcasm alert]
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top