Are You Ready For Christmas?

It's an oft repeated question in the month of December: "Are you ready for Christmas?"  Mostly, I take the inquirer to mean 'have you bought all your intended presents?' or 'have you stocked your pantry adequately for the volume of guests you are expecting?' or 'Are you sufficiently sick of your employment that you could use a few days off to finish out this calendar year?' (or some combination thereof).  But Advent, the season of waiting, is also a season of preparation.  We are to prepare our hearts with, at very least, the diligence and the intentionality that we prepare our homes or our calendars or travel plans for this high and holy celebration.

"In French homes, it is traditional for children to follow the custom of preparing a creche in the days leading up to Christmas.  For each prayer or act of kindness that they perform during the season, they place a piece of straw in the manger.  With each token of straw, the children are preparing the place for Christ to be born - literally, by creation a soft bed of straw, and also figuratively, by preparing their hearts with acts of kindness and prayerful devotion. The custom of preparing the creche mirrors the act of Christians preparing their hearts for the arrival of Emmanuel, God with us."  ("Christmas Eve: The History of the Feast", in God with Us, p. 119)  For a more contemporary way to enact this in your home, see here 

It is as if all through Advent and now as we come to the final few hours before the celebration, "we ourselves become the manger, inviting Christ to dwell within us just as He found rest in that Bethlehem stable" (ibid).  

So the real question is not about your home, what's under your tree (or, if you're a guy, what's still at the mall waiting for you to begin your Christmas shopping) or what's on the menu for the next few days.  The real question is are YOU ready for Christmas?  

Comments

[Rynomi.wordpress.com]

Thanks for this excellent reminder that "being ready" for Christmas is about examining and shaping our character and behaviour to fit with the coming child.

All the best to you as you prepare for Christmas.