Advent--Teaching a Procrastinator How to Prepare

December may have just arrived, but Christmas has been in the works since late summer! Every year we complain that the stores start their holiday promotions earlier and earlier. It seems to test our senses. This year, though, I started thinking about how we view all that commercialism and I came to a new conclusion. Maybe starting to prepare for the holiday so early isn't such a bad thing.

To many people, December is the month we get ready for Christmas, but to Christians, December is the month of Advent. In church each Sunday we light the Advent candle counting down the Sundays until Christmas Eve. Advent is all about preparation. It reminds us that what we are preparing for is the birth of the Christ Child. For all Christians December is a balancing act between the festivities and the focus. Everyday I hear people counting off the 'jobs completed'. "Christmas cards went out today!" "We picked out our tree and cut it down." "Our tree is up!" From baking and shopping to office parties and Christmas Cantatas, the whole month of December is a month of preparation. For a dyed in the wool procrastinator, my attention is much more on the festivities, and less on the focus. For instance...

As a child the feeling of urgency on Christmas Eve added to the excitement. Unfortunately, I carried that into adulthood. I would still be making that Christmas stocking on Christmas Eve so it could be hung by the chimney with care after everyone had gone to bed. In fact, I kind of reveled in the rush to get it done. Over the years I've gotten better, but Christmas Eve will still find me up late getting everything ready. Festivities or Focus?

And that got me thinking about the preparation that goes into the preparation. How often do we fuss because the Christmas decorations have appeared in the stores before Halloween? Being a procrastinator it is easy to jeer sarcastically at them and say the season keeps starting earlier and earlier. But is it possible that those stores are doing us a favor by helping us complete some tasks before the real prepartion begins? For instance maybe I should admire all those early birds that have their shopping done BEFORE Black Friday even arrives.

Lately, I've started to recognize all the benefits of getting things done early. The cookie baker who bakes and freezes her cookies in advance is ready for any party and doesn't have a sink full of mixing bowls and baking pans as she heads out the door. What a thought! Buying that Christmas Tree in September (artificial, that is) means you aren't paying for it in December when money is at a premium. In fact, an obvious benefit of shopping early would mean my January credit card bill would no longer cause a major meltdown in the family budget. I'm not holding out much hope for me for that one. I have multi-levels of reasons that support my need to buy gifts at the last minute.

The point here is that Advent is the time when we prepare our hearts for the birth of Christ. The decorations, the shopping and the parties add to the fun, but probably not so much to the focus. Maybe next year I'll find a way to do some of the prep work in advance so that during this month I can focus more on what Christmas means. The stores have their reasons for getting me started early. It's called 'getting into the black'. But I can take their strategy and work it for me. And I'll call it 'getting the spirit back'.