I love the Christmas season, really I do! However, When I see Christmas decorations up around homes before Thanksgiving, my heart does sink a bit. I wonder, are they really ready for Christmas or are they just rushing it?

Call me old-fashioned, but I thought the Thanksgiving holiday ushered in the Christmas season. Santa Claus is usually the last float of any parade that day. I only start playing Christmas music the day after Thanksgiving. In a way, there’s a bit of a pattern to my Christmas preparations: first, I start listening to music and put the outside decorations up. Next, I begin to plan my cookie and bread baking, then shop for the necessary ingredients, and finally make the breads and cookies while listening to Christmas music. Lastly, because of Vera, I put up my Christmas tree in the week prior to Christmas day. It’s like a slow unfolding of the holiday season, just the right amount to be savored. 

When God promised redemption to Adam, Jesus didn’t immediately come. It required preparing a people, starting with Abraham, which grew into a nation through Jacob — which was renamed Israel. Through Moses, the people learned how to be the people of God, which then became a kingdom with David. Even at this point, the people were still not ready, and it took many generations of hardship, exile, and recovery before it was Jesus’ time to come. And when He finally came, He was rejected by those most knowledgeable of God: the Pharisees and the Saduccees. 

The wisdom of the Church gives us the opportunity to prepare ourselves by having 4 “weeks” of Advent, designated by Sundays. Since December 25 falls on a Monday this year, our Advent season is really only three weeks and day. I will gladly use the three weeks to prepare myself and my home for Christmas. I am a different person this year than I have been in previous years. I’ve had different experiences that have changed and shaped me. This year’s preparation for Christmas will be different from previous years, and that’s to be expected. While I may put the same decorations on the same tree I’ve had for years, listening to the same Christmas songs, I will see them in a slightly different way and the nostalgia they bring will be slightly different than they were the year before.  

Each year we need to take the time to prepare for the Christmas season, even if we follow a traditional plan for celebrating. God took His time in preparing humanity to receive Jesus, and we should not be in a rush to celebrate, but take the time to make ourselves ready and open to receive Jesus in the various ways He comes to us: as a baby in the Nativity, in the Eucharist at Mass, and as our judge and advocate at His second coming.