When I was a lad, decorating for Christmas happened later than it does today. Our home wasn’t bestowed with holiday glee until at least the second week of December when I was growing up. This stands in contrast to my family’s tradition today, which finds us decking the halls the day or two after Thanksgiving.
Impatient with the pace of celebrating Christmas when I was a child, I decided one year to force my parents’ hand. I was in elementary school at the time and had an early-release day. After stepping off the bus just afternoon, I found the key that we hid under the mat by the back door, and I let myself into our vacant house. I made a pot of ‘Bean with Bacon’ Campbell’s Soup and watched an episode of Green Acres on TV. Then, I sprang into action. I pulled out all the Christmas decorations and began the work of placing them in their time-honored places.
I placed the macramé Christmas tree on the door. I arranged the dingy, red pillar candles on the coffee table. I hung the stockings. Trinket-y items that had been given to my mother as gifts from her grade school students years before were displayed. I even cut holly from our bush in the front yard and tried to arrange them appropriately on the mantle. Yes, I hung the fake mistletoe above the kitchen door.
I had high hopes that my parents would be pleased with my efforts. I had, in about 3 hours, been able to decorate our home for Christmas successfully. Come to find out; I had seriously misjudged my parents’ reaction. When they arrived home, they scolded me for getting ahead of myself. I tried to explain that I was trying to help them out and that I couldn’t wait to be touched by the spirit of Christmas. Nothing I said moved them. I was directed to return everything to its rightful place before dinner. I remember doing so under protest and further irked them when I hijacked their wishes by keeping a few Christmas items out and about.
The truth is, I wasn’t trying to help them out nearly as much as I was trying to change the mood of our home. I yearned for the warmth and comfort of a home that had been transformed by ancient family relics—like the old nativity scene—and the glow of artificial lighting. My family had settled into a beleaguered melancholy that fall, and I wanted family-life to feel different. I desired transformation. I yearned for something familiar and sweet.
Each year at our church, a merry band of our friends takes a day to change the look and feel of our sanctuary. Careful to coordinate their efforts with our church calendar and the arrival of the Advent season, our decorating crew works hard to make worship warm and festive during Christmas. The garland is expertly draped. The wreaths are precisely located. The Christmas tree is assembled, and scores of Chrismons are placed on its
branches. The Advent wreath receives new candles, and the figurines for the nativity scene are unwrapped from last year’s newspapers like unexpected time capsules.
The decorations matter. They change how worship feels. The sanctuary becomes smaller, cozier. Those we worship with don’t feel quite so far away. These seasonal changes heighten our senses, and the smell of freshly brewed apple cider in the narthex after worship arouses euphoria.
Our church’s transformed sanctuary each Advent season ensures that we are able to be ‘home for Christmas.’
By the time we get to this time of the year, many of us are eager to step into a reality that’s been transformed by Christ’s arrival in the world. Attending worship during Advent and lingering in our decorated sanctuary does provide us with the feeling of Emmanuel, God With Us. The trappings of Christmas don’t just change how we feel, of course. They also serve to remind us of the story of God’s love and teach us how knowing Christ can bring us hope, peace, and joy.
No wonder I wanted to get out the decorations early when I was a child. I was hungry for something I couldn’t identify. I know now that I desired the Kingdom of God and the reorientation that it brings to our lives.
But it may have also been my curiosity to find leftover Hershey kisses from the year before.
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A special thank you goes out to Gwen and Harold Messer and their merry band of decorators for their hard work in transforming our church for the Advent and Christmas season.