For Jerusalem Greer, Advent is a time of anticipation - bittersweet days of waiting to celebrate the birth of Christ. The weeks leading to Christmas are filled with joy, but also sorrow for the North Little Rock author.
“Advent to me is about heartbreak but in that beautiful way,” Greer said. “Birth is heartbreak and that’s what it’s about. My husband used to joke it’s not Christmas until I cry.”
Greer shares her thoughts on Advent and the rest of the liturgical year in A Homemade Year: The Blessings of Cooking, Crafting and Coming Together (Paraclete Press). As the title suggests, she also offers recipes and suggestions for crafts that families can make together to add meaning and some new traditions to their celebrations of the church year.
Advent, which began Dec. 1, is sometimes referred to as Winter Lent, because like the days before Easter, the days before Christmas are often a time of introspection and anticipation - one for the birth of Christ, the other to celebrate his Resurrection.
“For us it is the beginning of the church year and it’s the time when we kind of set aside to begin to wait for Christmas and to anticipate its arrival,” Greer said. “It’s as much about waiting and getting ready as it is about Christmas being here. … Advent is preparing us, refocusing us a little each week.”
Greer, who grew up Southern Baptist but is now an Episcopalian, said she enjoys the rhythm of following the liturgical church year.
“I really like having these markers throughout the year … that there are all these stopping places along the way, to stop and remember and dig into the faith and connect,” she said.
Greer said doing so became even more important when she became a mother.
“I wanted them to have those traditions,” she said.
Several Advent traditions developed over time, including the making of wreaths and calendars. Greer shares instructions in the book for making a Woodland Advent Wreath. Traditional Advent wreaths are usually made of evergreens, such as fir, and include four candles representing the four weeks of the season. One is lit each Sunday and the fifth candle in the center is lit on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day.
Greer suggests a nontraditional wreath, one she learned about while living in Alaska. It’s made from a “thick slice of log,” with holes drilled for the candles. The book includes a list of supplies and instructions for making one.
The book also includes directions for making an Advent calendar - a way to mark the days to Christmas in a special way. The calendar is made from postal shipping tags, and each one includes either a Scripture reading or an activity, such as taking cookies to a neighbor or taking time to slow down and enjoy being together.
Both are annual traditions for Greer, her husband Nathan and sons Wylie and Miles.
“We’ve done those since they were very little,” she said.
The family also makes time during the busy season to pause and share a meal together, usually on Sunday night. They light the Advent candle for the week and listen to readings from the Old and New Testaments.
“We’ve done that for a long time,” she said. “We try to make it like a traditional Sunday dinner, like grandma used to do.”
Thanks to busy lives, sometimes the menu is Chinese takeout, but the tradition and the importance of the gathering are the same.
Greer said those times are precious.
“[The season] is supposed to be all about coming together and being at home and focusing on faith and we end up all over the place. Sometimes we are home less this time of year, so those once-a-week dinners tend to be a big deal,” Greer said.
The Christmas season can be a stressful time for many, Greer said, with family strife, stress about money or finding the latest and greatest toy or gadget. She said she tries to focus on Mary and what it must have been like for her.
“We tend to get caught up in ‘The baby’s been born!’ when really it’s all that hard stuff that makes it really wonderful,” she said. “Advent is a way to hold both sorrow and joy and become OK with Christmas being complicated and making peace with that.”
Information on the book is available online at paracletepress.com/a-homemade-year.html. The site includes instructions for many of the crafts found in the book.
Religion, Pages 12 on 12/07/2013