Earlier this November I received an exciting and perplexing article in my inbox from one of my favorite magazines: Our Favorite Advent Calendars of 2023. It was exciting because I love Advent, but as I read the article, it perplexed me. Many Christians bemoan the commercialization of Christmas each year, but Advent? Surely Advent would be different.

In full disclosure, I have never been a big "Advent calendar" person, nor do I think there is anything wrong with the practice. I believe the creativity of the various calendars and packaging of tiny things to be, honestly, an amazing example of human creativity. Yet I wonder what the proliferation of Advent calendars of all types communicates to the world about our dearly beloved church season of Advent.

Louryn Strampe writes: "There's something undeniably exciting about Advent calendars. To me, they were the first example of a little treat." Honestly, I am so with you, Louryn. She goes on to say: "As an adult, spending just a moment every single day with a special little treat or gift can help you stop feeling overwhelmed by all the tree trimming and gift wrapping—enough so you can start enjoying the ride." (1)

It is apparent that Advent, from a commercial lens, is an extension of the holiday shopping spree: one more item we must purchase for pleasure or even for therapeutic reasons as we navigate an increasingly long and fraught season of gift-purchasing. What Advent actually is can be disregarded. The easiest sign of this is the inconsistency in the actual products. Some have "twelve days" to count down towards Christmas, casually flip-flopping the Twelve Day of Christmas for a four-week Advent observation; others simply pick up at the beginning of the month. Wired's advice? "Who needs rules? Just double up on treats if you start late!"

I am concerned for people in this fraught season. At my spouse’s congregation, she shared with me that many of her people simply are not excited for Christmas. When people are experiencing burnout, deep concern about global conflict, and their own challenges, it feels incoherent to worship at the altar of consumerism without deep unease. In my own context, I see people working harder than ever to be "normal" after one, two, three years off of their pre-covid holiday traditions. Christmas sales, deals and incentives are on, more than ever. They encourage people to fix their problems and allay their concerns with some kind of instant gratification. This works for us, in the short term; and it works to get us to buy more stuff. However, the point of Christmas is not to glorify ourselves, or even to give to others; the point of Christmas is to glorify God, come in human form as an infant born with nothing. The point of Advent, then, is not to support a season of self-glorification and consumerism, but to prepare us for the coming of the Savior. Distraction and avoidance will not address most issues; this type of self-care is just consumerism in disguise. A little treat a day won't cut it; we need a true Advent.

Fleming Rutledge writes that "Advent teaches us to delay Christmas in order to experience it truly when it finally comes. Advent is designed to show that the meaning of Christmas is diminished to the vanishing point if we are not willing to take a fearless inventory of the darkness." (2) And dark are our current times. We need not look far to see the depth of suffering in our global community. We too are complicit, as our planet and our poor bear the burden of our persistent consumer choices for "more." Consumerism draws our attention away from reality. It tells us that it is more important to fulfill our own wants than others’ needs. It tells us that we are waiting for nothing, no one. Advent directs our attention onto the truth. We are called to face up to reality, to face up to sin, to face our lives as they truly are, to recognize our need for a Savior. We are called to prepare ourselves, and our world, for the coming of Christ. The church has to be able to look fearlessly into the most difficult of human conflict, the endless list of our failures and frailty, and sit with it. Advent offers more questions than answers, more uncertainty than peace and hope and joy. Advent requires honesty; and honesty can lead to lament, to pain, to unanswered questions, and finally to prayer: Come, thou long expected Jesus.

We clergy have lamented the secularization of Christmas for a generation, and little seems to have changed on its own. When I see articles ranking the "best" Advent calendars, I worry that the same thing is happening to another church season. The real reason that Advent has been picked up by mainstream culture is it gives corporations a chance to sell us one more thing: a chance to get us to try their product twelve, or twenty, or thirty more times.

Imagine a world where instead of taking things out of the Advent Calendar, we put things into it. The focus shifts. We are not the receivers of tiny gifts, but givers. We do not have to purchase one more thing, but are given chances to unburden ourselves. How would that change the dynamic of Advent? What might we choose to put into the Advent calendar? What might God invite us to place into the tiny boxes? What would it look like when Christmas arrives and the calendar is full, not empty?

When we reframe the Advent calendar, and Advent itself in this way, we open up new opportunities for preparation for Christmas. Our calendar might fill itself with prayers; or perhaps like old-fashioned Advent calendars, we could create a nativity scene or have verses of scripture we read year after year. Perhaps we use the Advent calendar as a vehicle to give to the poor, collecting change each day and presenting a full calendar to those in need as a result of our own preparation for Christmas. The calendar could hold our confessions, our laments, our joys, our gratitudes. However we choose to use it, the practice will help us. This discipline will have a therapeutic effect, just like receiving tiny gifts does. Except the therapeutic aspect is not centered, it is a side benefit; it is an opening of our hearts to love, joy, peace, hope, and other spiritual fruits. It is in the preparation that we make all these abiding feelings possible.

I don't see any of this as easy work. People of faith have always been countercultural. Our particular time struggles with a culture that has co-opted elements of the faith in a subtle way that most have trouble separating secular tradition from sacred, or may not even see the point. Advent is a sacred time that invites us into honesty about the world and our own lives as we prepare to welcome Jesus. It feels good to be honest, and when we unwrap the colorful papers we use to hide the broken things in our lives, we can speak again of a hope; the deep hope of Christmas, the searching hope in Jesus' second coming, and a full hope that God will set all things right.

1. Strampe, Louryn. “Our Favorite Advent Calendars of 2023.” Wired, Conde Nast, 16 Nov. 2023, www.wired.com/gallery/best-advent-calendars.

2. Rutledge, F. (2018). Advent: The Once and Future Coming of Jesus Christ (p. 252). William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.