Day 3: What’s the point of Advent?

I’m all about a schedule and a calendar.  I grew up with the church calendar and the different colors on the altar and the times of change and the times of decorating and the times of feasts and the time of the ordinary.  

Ordinary time is my favorite. I love ordinary.

I grew up with Advent in my life as a season, the time of decorating and getting ready for Christmas.  Our family Advent wreath was kind of sad, but it was a staple of the season on our kitchen table.  It was a simple wooden plus sign, two pieces of wood with holes drilled in each end that were supposed to be candle-sized.  They were not actually candle-sized.  They were candle-ish-sized.  The candles never actually fit.  If the candles were too big for the holes, we would shave the wax off their bases with a steak knife until we could cram them in.  If they were too small, we’d wrap napkins around the base to make it thicker because what could go wrong with wood, paper, and an open flame at a table with 5 kids? 

My mom would put the little wooden cross (which I later came to see as an indication of another cross) on a big, old tin plate that I never saw at any other time in my life except when it was under that cross.  Then she’d go out into the yard and pull leaves off the magnolia tree, branches from the pines, and berries from the bushes and use those materials to decorate around the wood to cover it up and make it look pretty.  And she did make it pretty because that’s what moms do. 

Also, 4-week-old, dry, crinkly greenery is really the only way to display the open flames wrapped in paper and supported by wood, right?  Maybe I liked Advent because it was dangerous.

We fought over who got to light the spindly, precarious candles on the fire hazard in the center of the kitchen table, and we fought over who got to blow them out.  My mom scraped wax off the table because we always blew them out with enthusiasm (and sometimes devious deceit).  As a family, we watched them shrink over the weeks.  As a kid, the shorter they got, the closer Christmas was.  I liked that they were all different heights. 

I loved Advent when I was little because I like the scratch of the match to light the candle and the smoke from blowing them out.  I liked that it heralded Santa and presents.  That was the point of Advent then. 

What’s the point of Advent now?  Is it just something that’s time for on the schedule?  Is it for waiting or for preparing or for decorating or for all of that?  And if so, what are we waiting, preparing, and decorating for?