Advent is the four weeks that lead up to Christmas. It is meant to serve as a time of waiting and preparation for the great joys of Christmas. Sadly, it is often forgotten or simply interchanged for more Christmas time. Advent for me is what makes the joy of Christmas that much better, because it came not when I wanted, but after a period of waiting in anticipation.
I entered this advent very unbalanced. I was not finding routine or much free time in my new job as caretaker of the teenage girls in Ceiba. I was continuing to struggle with a nasty cough. I was feeling generally imbalanced about life. Advent changed that.
We began advent with a beautiful mass in the cathedral where the priests actually blessed every family’s wreath on the altar and lit each first purple candle. Padre Francisco then said a beautiful homily about the great beauty and graces available in this season, and how we should all take advantage of them. So we did.
A traditional advent wreath has four candles, so here are four points of light from our Advent here in Ceiba:
1. Weekly Prayer: When our wreath was blessed at mass, they gave us a small prayer book with weekly prayers for Advent. While our teens usually find it hard to agree on anything, they all agreed without contestation that we would do the weekly prayers with our blessed wreath at community night each Monday night until Christmas. Every week for four weeks we started our Monday night together in these joy and hope filled prayers, each person taking their turn to lead without any complaints. The peace these simple prayers brought us was truly beautiful.
2. Dalila’s big move and Christmas decorations: Dalila graduated high school this past November, and has been planning her big move to independent life over the past year, and this advent her fateful day finally arrived. She was all set with her job, new place to live, university scholarship, all she had to do was sign a contract with the farm and pack her clothes up. When she finally set a day, December 11, I asked her what she wanted to do before she moved out. So we cooked all her favorite meals, had a pj party, everything. One thing she specifically requested was that we decorated the house for Christmas before she moved. She wanted to make sure the house was ready for Christmas. So on Tuesday night we listened to Christmas music and decorated till our hearts were content. That following Sunday Dalila took a taxi to her new home, only four blocks away. She then decorated her new home the following day; making sure that it was ready for Christmas as well. We greatly miss her, but also see her often and truly appreciate her example for all our teens. In the spirit of Advent she then showed up on Christmas Eve to leave some presents under our tree, where she found some waiting for her as well!
3. Posadas: Typically the third candle is the pink one meaning the joyful week, because the great feast of Christmas is now so close. Posadas were our pink candle this year. Posadas are when two people dress up as Mary and Joseph and go house to house asking for a place to stay. You sing Christmas carols in between houses, and then the third house usually offers you posada or a place to stay. There you hear about the theme of the night, something related to Christmas, and then share a snack. This year the youth group had their own posadas. It was so fun to see almost all our kids dress up and to walk around Ceiba singing songs. The last night Nils and I proved what we believe to be the the tallest Mary and Joseph combo Ceiba had seen in quite some time as Nils is 6’4” and I m almost 5’8”. The true spirit of Christmas was all around us for all 9 nights leading up to Christmas eve, along with fun songs, yummy snacks, and our kids getting an extra chance to hang out with their friends on Christmas eve.
4. Excitement in the preparation: As many of you know I simply love Christmas. To a certain extent, for me the shear process of getting ready for those 12 days of Christmas brought me out of my personal imbalance and into a more joyous state.
Advent brought me joy in the form of Christmas music, gingerbread houses, tree decorating, and posadas. It brought me hope that while I waited for this great feast, I could start the process of regaining my balance in life, and hope that with all the joy of Christmas I could once again find the means to staying on the path to a more balanced me.
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