Plan Your Work, Work Your Plan

What’s your Advent plan?  Everyone needs a plan, perhaps now more than ever!  And since we are not making home deliveries of Advent boxes this year, let’s get us set up for a powerful Advent entry experience into the mysteries of Christmas.  Here’s my homemade Advent box and plan:
 

1. Blue not orange and dark red!  Colors, darling, colors!  Liturgical companies took the rich blue hues associated with Saint Mary, the mother of our Lord, to anchor Advent with its own unique color palette.  Most churches, including ours, continue to use the Lenten purple so we don’t spend thousands of dollars on a brand-new altar makeover, but at home why not!  Off comes the autumnal reds and oranges, and out comes my simple blue fabric for a tablecloth and a few blue swaths up on the fireplace mantle.  Blue is way in this Advent!

1. Clip it and thread it!!  I have come to love fashioning my own simple Advent wreath to anchor my dining room table.  I take twigs and a few small, downed branches to roughly curl into some rounded shape, throw a few fresh pinecones on top, a few bright small glass ornaments and….a presto, Advent Wreath!  Most local grocery stores, gift shops and of course Amazon sell the 4 candle Advent sets we’ve provided in the past.  3 purple or blue, 1 pink which we’ll explain on the Third Sunday of Advent soon.  Light that first one for the first week of Advent and then the second blue or purple beginning next Sunday, and so on.  If you like, just add a tall white taper in the middle on Christmas Eve and voila!  Home Christ candle!!!

3 . Stop and pray it!  Any good previous or current Advent devotional, and yes, we have some at church until they’re all gone!  Use this daily devotional, or another on-line, or simply the Book of Common Prayer’s Daily Office Lectionary!  I like this wonderful free and easy site here, just tap the image and away we pray, updated for Morning and Evening Prayer with the day’s readings!  Or how about morning coffee with silence and a candle to ponder God’s provisions for the day?

4. A slow-walk towards Christmas……I use Advent, especially post-children under roof, to set up Christmas in the Rectory more intentionally.  May I suggest Advent is a wonderful way to peaceably enter into Christmas décor?

The cost of all the above?  About $10.00 or less!!!  The benefit?  Priceless!!  Plan your Advent, dear readers, and work your Advent plan!