Ordinary Time: A Revelation
Was your Christmas less than picture perfect? Then you’re going to love this guest post by one of my favorite writers, Simcha Fisher. (For those of you who aren’t familiar with the liturgical calendar, Ordinary Time is the liturgical season outside of specific liturgical seasons like Lent, Advent, Christmas, etc. The Christmas season just ended, and now we’re currently in Ordinary Time.)
I’m still sweeping up pine needles from the Christmas tree. I don’t mind, because unlike every other mess, this one has a definitive end. Some day soon, I will find and remove the final pine needle, and then the house will be back to normal — back to Ordinary Time.
This year more than most, Christmas was more crisis than celebration. Oh, it was happy and holy, but we also had strep throat and surgery and extra helpings of every type of anxiety and distress that comes with family life. And even in easier years, the sheer volume of things that Need To Be Done For Christmas is overwhelming.
The season follows this structure:
Advent is a time of struggle, when the spiritual and material to-do lists fight for primacy. We do our best to pray and sing, confess and prepare our hearts — but what can we do? Even small presents have to be planned, bought, and wrapped; even simple meals have to be baked. Even minimal parties and concerts must be practiced, bathed and brushed for, driven to, kept awake during. Unless you live in a cave, Advent is an endurance test, especially for mothers. The struggle reaches its peak on Christmas Eve.
On Christmas day, there is a brief island of peace and contentment. Unless you’re made out of stone, you lay down the recipes and white tights and gift tags, and let the song of the angels in. You stop working, and you rejoice.
Then comes a pleasant, buzzing chaos that consumes the house for a couple of weeks at least. It’s a messy but happy time, with new presents scattered in with laundry, candy canes underfoot, and Christmas cards fighting for display space with the normal decor of water bills and exemplary spelling tests.
And then finally comes the day when you can’t stand the disorder one more second. It has all got to go. Epiphany is the Housewive’s Holiday: it doesn’t matter how much we love those colored lights and baubles — nothing makes my heart warmer than to pack it all away, away, away.
And while I pack and sweep up pine needles, I think about what just happened to us. I wonder if we did it right, or if I missed anything.
Christmas never hits me until the season is over. The sheer obviousness of what I’m going to say next may annoy you: Christmas is kind of like having a baby. There, I said it. Baby Jesus being born is a lot like a baby being born. And it doesn’t always go as well as it sounds in the books.
Advent, for instance, is an awful lot like the third trimester of pregnancy: everyone’s gleeful, quivering with anticipation. You know that something wonderful is happening, and you just can’t wait — but at the same time, you feel like hell. You want that baby to come, but you know how hard it’s going to be. No matter how much you meditate on the mystery to come, these days are one part sacred, two parts panicked, and one part just trying not to stop moving — because, like a shark, if you stop, you die.
And the big day itself? I don’t care who you are: no matter how holy or fit or hypnotized or drugged out you are, giving birth is horrible. Yes, it’s worth it. Yes, you chose it, and you want it to happen, and you’d do it again. But it hurts. It’s bloody. It’s messy, and exhausting, and sometimes you almost die. Just like the last week of Advent!
And just like on Christmas day, the birth of a baby will give you a few blissed-out hours right afterward. Eight times, I’ve been absolutely gobsmacked to see an actual little person — with eyes, even, and ears and knees everything, just like a real person — come out of me. This is what I have accomplished! And he is so beautiful. And the struggle is over, and I hear the song of the angels.
I go home, and it’s a mess, but who cares? That same pleasant chaos, that mixture of delight and weariness, relief and confusion, surrounds me and the child. Instead of post-Christmas-day drifts of crumpled wrapping paper and tumbled-together presents and ornaments, the post-delivery house is awash in diapers and receiving blankets, bouncy chairs and rubber duckies — nothing in its place, but all part of a lovely, inevitable disorder.
In those first weeks, though, the love and excitement gradually wear thin, and the weariness, the dampness, and the crumbs take over. Suddenly there comes a day when I can’t stand it a minute longer. No, this mess is not okay. No, the toddler does not like the new baby. No, I cannot go on for one more minute without getting some rest. No, it is not cute that my husband has become a vaguely fond stranger. I don’t care how much rest I’m supposed to be getting, I cannot sit here and let that plant go unwatered for another minute! Who thought it was okay to keep the bagels in the sock drawer? Does it bother no one that the bathroom looks this way? Do humans live here, or wolves? And. . . and do newborns always really cry this much, really?
And something so good has happened to us — so why do I feel so bad?
Well, those are the first few weeks. And then? Slowly, life begins again. That first, fragile period is over, and what do we have? What an epiphany: we have baby. He only becomes manifest to me, it seems, weeks after the birth. And that is when things begin to fall into place, literally (we figure out where the carseat and the crib can fit in) and figuratively (the toddler figures out where the new baby can fit in). Life becomes less of a desperate blur and more of something new, but something good.
It happens. Things comes together. The household slowly rises back to our (somewhat relaxed) standards; the other children come to know and love the baby, and become comfortable in their adjusted roles. My husband and I both reach for the baby wipes at the same time, and the moment is as sweet as the moment we exchanged wedding rings. Sweeter, even: less glorious, but more profound. The crisis is over, and now we get to live with what we have recieved. With every child, there comes a morning when I roll over in bed and realize that the sun is shing. I have slept! I look straight into the face of the little one in the cradle. The face is beautiful. He looks just like his father! I somehow didn’t see it until now, but look: the miracle has arrived.
What do we expect of Christmas? Some blazing apocalypse that will permanently transform us in a hurricane of angel’s wings? Sometimes that happens, but in the day-to-day, we’re not made to live like that — not yet. Yes, the Incarnation is a crisis — but it doesn’t end when Epiphany comes. In a way, that is when it really begins.
If you feel like you missed Christmas this year, it’s okay — the Child was still born. He hasn’t gone away. He’s quietly growing, and perhaps you will find that you have made some room in your heart after all, even if if didn’t happen in a blaze of glory. The Incarnate God lives with us, stays with us. This is the time for us to enjoy Him, see what He is like — and to keep making room for Him as the Christ Child grows.
Read more from Simcha at her blog, I Have to Sit Down.
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RELATED (other great stuff by Simcha):
- The case for siblings
- I went out to buy a skirt
- Big families are the new green
- The five stages of exhaustion
Baby steps for celebrating Advent: 24 super simple ideas
With over 100 comments to my post about Advent, you really came through with some wonderful ideas about taking “baby steps” into Advent! As always, I read every single comment, and I thought it might be helpful to others if I posted some examples of all the great ideas everyone shared.
For my fellow easily-overwhelmed people, let me emphasize that the idea is that you’d just choose one or two of these. I only included tons of options since different things work for different people.
PRAYERS
Many people referred to saying daily prayers during Advent. If, like me, you’re not sure where to start with that, here’s a great list of simple daily Advent prayers.
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ADVENT WREATHS
~ 1 ~
If you do nothing else: Advent Wreath. It is the universal symbol of Advent. The kids will see it at church every week. Is is the Big Countdown. You’re probably sitting down for dinner together anyway, so lighting candles at the table is one tiny step that will make the whole month feel special even if you do literally nothing else, not even prayers.
- Christy
~ 2 ~
Use your Advent wreath as a centerpiece (assuming your kids won’t climb on the table and destroy it.) Every night at dinner, instead of saying your usual prayer before meals, light the candle and say an advent prayer. Simple!
- Loni of Simply Everything
~ 3 ~
We have a daily Advent wreath devotion, and the plan is that each night we light the candle for that week, have the kids tell us what that candle represents, read the scripture for that night and sing songs. We accept in advance, however, that there will be nights that we don’t get to it — and that’s okay. If we aim for every night it’s bound to happen at least several nights that week, so the kids get some exposure.
- Jeana
~ 4 ~
Our only Advent tradition is our Advent wreath. Our only rule is that we have to eat dinner at a clean table with a lit Advent wreath every night.
- GeekLady of Tales of a Geek
~ 5 ~
Sing O Come, O Come Emmanuel before dinner. If an Advent wreath is too much, light some candles. Turn out the lights…Print out 4 verses of the song. Sing one verse for a whole week, the next verse the next week, etc. Ring bells for the refrain! My mom had little jingle bells that we held really quietly until the refrain — then we belted out “REJOICE! REJOICE!” and rang our bells for all we were worth. Of all the things my parents did to celebrate Advent, this is the one that sticks the most.
– Maia of Flowers Round the Cross
~ 6 ~
We do an advent wreath and each person gets a turn to lead us in prayer and light candles, starting with the youngest. Those too young to read have help, of course, and those who can’t be trusted with fire have mom or dad hold their hand with a long fireplace match.
– Mike of What Does Mike Think?
~ 7 ~
We place the wreath on the table at the beginning of Advent and the children light the appropriate number of candles as the weeks go by. We turn out all of the other lights so that you really get a feel for the Light is coming!
- Sandie
~ 8 ~
I have found many devotional books to use with the Advent wreath – which we light before we say Grace at dinner. But none of the books really have WOWED us — so this year we are doing a saint each night. I have a very simple First Book of Saints [here's an example] — one page per saint with a nice picture — and we’re going to take turns each night picking and reading the story of one saint.
- Jennifer
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MANGERS / NATIVITY SETS
~ 9 ~
We have a Nativity set that we set out on one side of the room. On the other side we set out the Holy Family. Each Sunday of Advent we move them a little closer to the creche (they circle the room) and talk about the journey Mary and Joseph took.
- Natalile
~ 10 ~
We have a simple wooden manger my father-in-law made for us years ago. It goes with an inexpensive baby doll. We cut up strips of yellow construction paper and the kids put a piece into the manger when they do a good deed. Baby Jesus arrives on Christmas Eve to a nice cushy manger.
- Love2learn Mom
- Melanie of the Wine-Dark Sea
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OTHER SUGGESTIONS
~ 13 ~
Advent calendar – We get a chocolate one every year, but if you do this, each child will have to have their own, otherwise much tension will ensue. 
We also have a wood one. Even those paper ones are great. The kids love seeing what’s behind the window each day.
- Tiffany of Life of a Catholic Librarian
~ 14 ~
We also had an Advent calendar with little ornaments for each day — and we’d take out an ornament each day and put it on a mini tree.
- Liesl of The Spiritual Workout
~ 15 ~
Each year we put out a stocking for Jesus at the beginning of Advent. Throughout the season, whenever anyone makes a small sacrifice or does a good deed (complimenting a sibling, making a bed without being asked, etc.) we write down what they did on a scrap of paper, and put it in the stocking. Here’s the best part: we then save the stocking until the beginning of the next Advent, then open it and read all the great things everyone did last year. It inspires us to think of what we did the year before, and encourages us to have another great Advent!
– My friend Christine (my paraphrasing of a phone call with her)
~ 16 ~
One other thing we did was to make an Advent paper chain. Each day we chose three things to pray for, and wrote one name on each link: someone we didn’t know (a four-year old girl in India), someone we did know (a friend or relative), and some way we’d like to grow (patience, etc). We kept adding to the chain, and by Christmas could ‘wrap our tree in prayer’. Really simple, and okay if you miss a few days here and there.
– Julia of Lotsa Laundry
~ 17 ~
Like you, I have four small children- 6yo, 5yo, 3yo & 8 month old baby. Also- Advent was a TOTAL failure last year!…This year- I bought a GORGEOUS, hardcover, keepsake book- The Advent Book by the Stockman’s. Hardcover book & heavy pages. A different door to open each day with scripture and illustration behind it. Really, really beautiful artwork. Short, simple, EASY! This is just our speed with four little ones in the house.
- Kelly of Three Little Jewells
~ 18 ~
I would also suggest that you add a purple and rose table cloth or runner to your table to further emphasize the liturgical season. Or perhaps napkins, even paper ones that you use on Sundays. This would help in marking the liturgical shifts of the year.
- Tami
~ 19 ~
A wonderful way to imbue your kids with the spirit of Advent is to flood your reading times with Advent- and Christmas-themed children’s books…In Charlotte Mason-speak, avoid the “twaddle”; stick with books that tell a wonderful story that draws kids in — they’ll remember it so much better than a dry, fact-filled monologue about some Christmas legend or tradition. You can just start with Tomie de Paola if you don’t have his stuff already, although I note some people hate his illustrating style. Here’s also a PDF list to start with from Catholic Mosaic. Scroll to the bottom for December/Christmas.
- Denise
~ 20 ~
A non-Catholic friend of mine started an Advent tradition years ago that I am finally going to claim for myself, now that my child is 3: She would wrap up 30 kids books about Christmas (some religious, some secular) with plain tissue paper and put them in a basket. Every night before bed, one of her kids would get to unwrap a book and together they would read it as a family. The books would get re-used year after year, and so it was exciting to revisit these books which only came out once a year. In my mind, if you’ve kept your eyes open at rummage sales, you can collect this many books about Christmas easily – the books stimulate discussion and prayer and family time each night.
- Charlotte
~ 21 ~
We also pray the Stations of the Nativity, a book we received as a gift one year and we use that during Advent and the Christmas Season during adoration.
– Susan H
~ 22 ~
A really simple tradition I’ve managed for the last couple of years is to get 24 small cards on the first Sunday of advent and write the name of a family/friend/country on each one. We fold them and add them to our advent calendar and pray for their intentions each evening during bedtime prayers. It takes 15 minutes to prepare and you’re sorted for the whole season!
- Lizzie
~ 23 ~
Following the FlyLady trick of “home blessing” happening once a week, do the little thing (Advent wreath and short prayer at dinner) every day, and the “home blessing” can be one big thing a week: pick 4 saints for the whole season, maybe, and do a craft for St. Nick’s day, a baking project for St. Lucia, and so on. One cool thing a week. Plan them the day after Thanksgiving when hopefully you’ll have some time on your hands, one page for each week.
– Katie of Kitchen Stewardship
~ 24 ~
When my boys were little…I didn’t try to do anything each DAY of Advent, except maybe a special dinner time prayer; but each Sunday we had a special “Advent Dinner.” I would fix a simple dinner (usually soup and homemade bread…can’t go wrong there, even in a bread machine!) and we would have the dinner by candlelight. I had some story / devotion / short activity and we lit the Sunday’s candle…We still look back fondly on those times and I think it was a good introduction to all of us as to what the waiting of Advent really is. They still talk fondly about those dinners.
– Suzanne
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A FINAL NOTE
I hope you found these suggestions as helpful as I did! I thought this comment from Tiffani would be a great way to close our list of suggestions:
I have a million children and a very hectic household too…If you are like me – a pretty well disorganized and unmotivated decorator – take heart that you aren’t really supposed to get all crazy during Advent. You’re supposed to prepare the way of the Lord. It’s kind of like a little Lent. Christmas is the big red and green party.
Thanks for the great comments, everyone!
What are some “baby steps” for celebrating Advent?
I hate to admit this, but I’ve come to associate Advent with EPIC FAIL. (And preparing the way for the glorious birth of Christ, of course. That and EPIC FAIL.)
Every year for the past three years I’ve tried lead my family in some of the rich traditions that this beautiful part of the liturgical year offers. And every year I end up getting overwhelmed and giving up around the second Sunday, the Advent decorations peeking out from the clutter on our mantle now serving primarily as a reminder that I don’t have my act together.
As I’ve contemplated this upcoming Advent, my fourth as a Christian, I’ve realized a few of things:
- I am more easily overwhelmed than most people.
- I have four kids under age seven (well, I guess I already knew that one).
- I have very little experience with this season; neither my husband nor I celebrated it growing up.
Considering those factors, I realized that the problem is that I’m trying to do too much. Even most of the books and websites that offer “simple” suggestions for Advent are above my level right now. Keeping up with an Advent wreath, Jesse tree, countdown calendar, special daily Advent prayers, arts and crafts projects and seasonal baking projects sounds like it wouldn’t be all that much, especially when it’s spread out over a season. But it is for me. By a long shot.
A lot of you are familiar with Fly Lady, the home organization guru who advocates that people who follow her system start with “baby steps,” i.e. doing a few extremely simple things to get your feet wet. (For example, her system will eventually lead you to an entire home makeover, but she suggests that you begin by just putting on your shoes and cleaning your sink. That’s it.)
So here’s my question for you:
What are some “baby steps” I could take to begin bringing the many traditions of Advent into my home?
The more specific, the better. And feel free to include yours, even if others have already commented. I’m sure there are other people who struggle with this, and what works for one person may not work for another.
Also, let me hasten to add that I know that all these great traditions aren’t ends in and of themselves: the goal is to bring us closer to Christ, to prepare our hearts and minds to behold the miracle of Christmas — and you can certainly do that without lighting a single Advent candle. Don’t worry, I don’t think that participating in Advent rituals will act as a magic bullet that instantly makes me holier and better prepared for Christmas.
I do think, however, that the activities of the liturgical year can point our hearts in the right direction (I often think of it as breathing with the Body of Christ); and I think that the rhythmic celebrations of the different seasons are deeply comforting and enriching for children. So it is important to me to make Advent a part of our family’s lives. Hopefully your baby step ideas will get me off to a good start!
UPDATE: Some weird technical glitch made comments closed. Anyway, it’s up now. Comment away!
The long thank-you
My six-year-old son is usually bored at Mass. For a couple years now I’ve been trying to find ways to draw him into it, but he can’t get past the fact that it’s not fun.
Honestly, it’s not always easy for me, either. I’m not usually bored, but I’ve experienced a wide variety of other unpleasant sensations: I’m often tired, and sometimes feel restless and anxious for church to be over. It is not uncommon at all for me to spent most of the service feeling extremely frustrated by the behavior of my son’s three younger sisters. (The other day I spent a fair amount of mental energy wondering if someone who specializes in dealing with rabid hyenas might be able to assist me in keeping certain toddlers in line at Mass.)
As a 33-year-old woman, I can get over all of this. Even on the very worst days (like, say, this one), I can muster up enough spiritual maturity to have at least a little awe at the idea of God made flesh in the Eucharist. I can stand in grateful humility before the re-presentation of Christ’s sacrifice for my sins, even when I’m otherwise out of sorts. I can usually even meditate on how cool it is that the communion of the Mass binds all the Body of Christ together, that I’m communing not only with God but with everyone from the saints in heaven to some little only lady in a church in Zimbabwe!
But try explaining all that to a six-year-old boy.
None of it resonates with him. I’ve kept trying to find ways to make this stuff come to life for him, to make him see church for the amazing experience it is. We’ve sat on the front row so that we can see all that’s going on, I let him bring colorful books about the life of Christ to peruse during the homily, I have him participate in all the prayers and listen during the Bible readings, I lean over during the consecration and let him know when the bread becomes Jesus, etc. Last week, yet again I threw all my powers of wordsmithing and imagination to make it interesting and exciting to him, and…nothing. He was still bored.
As we walked back to the car, my son visibly happy that church was over, I said a prayer that he might eventually be drawn into the holy sacrifice of the Mass. And, as soon as I said it, something clicked. I thought of a new way to explain the Mass to him that I’d never tried before.
“What would you do if someone bought you a present?” I asked.
“Say thank you?” he offered, not sure where I was going with this.
“OK, now, what if it were someone you’d hurt very badly, and he still bought you a present? Do you think you might give him an even bigger thank-you?”
“Yeah!”
“Now, what if you’d done something that hurt him really super extra badly, and he bought you the most awesome present in the world — like your own jumbo bouncy castle?”
“Whoa!”
“You’d spend even more time thanking him, right?”
“A ton!”
“But wait…what if you didn’t feel like it? What if it made you feel bored to spend all that time saying thanks?”
“It wouldn’t matter.”
Finally, I had a way to explain it: “Well, that’s how it is with church,” I said. As my husband helped all the other kids into the car, I talked to my son about what Jesus has done for us, and pointed out that one of the many reasons we go to Mass is simply to say “thank you.” And when you’re giving thanks for something enormous and undeserved, it takes a while — and how you feel about it is irrelevant. It doesn’t matter if it’s not fun.
It may not have instantly instilled him with a burning desire to spend all his time in the church, but I did see a flicker of understanding in his eyes. I think the inspiration to explain it that way was an answered prayer, and it’s one I’ll keep in mind next time I’m holding a fussy baby and eyeing the exit door in what seems like the 1,000th minute of church. When I can only barely work up inspiration about all the other amazing aspects of the Mass, I can simply think of it as the long thank-you.