The older I get, the more I treasure the slower, quieter moments of Advent, those weeks leading up to Christmas. This season used to feel full of activity—decorating, shopping, parties—but lately I’ve been drawn toward simple, faith-filled ways to prepare for Christmas.

I’ve been thinking a lot about tradition lately. Maybe because we just watched Fiddler on the Roof where Tevye asks the question, “How do we keep our balance?” Tradition!

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Advent is a season for traditions.

Maybe you don’t refer to these days leading up to Christmas as Advent, but for us, that’s what it is. (Four Sundays before Christmas and ending on Christmas Eve.) Preparing and waiting with anticipation for the coming of Christ, His birth, His second coming.

Yet sometimes this season can be overwhelmed with busy: festive parties, trees with ornaments and lights and tinsel and bows, cookie swaps, sparkly sweaters, and frenzied trips to the shopping center to find the perfect gift.

All good things when balanced rightly. (Yes, Tevye was right. Tradition.)

Then came 2020. It was oh so quiet. I turned my calendar page to December, and it was empty. So many of my favorite Advent traditions weren’t happening. At first I was tempted to fill my calendar up. How about a virtual brunch with long-time friends? Or a virtual craft time with ladies from church? Maybe. Those would be a blessing.

But simple and slow was also blessing.

I have a tendency to go-go-go, and sometimes it takes a major thing to get me to pause, to slow down. 2020 offered that major thing, and I’ve taken some of those lessons with me in recent years. (I shared some more ideas for a peaceful Christmas season here.)

I live this season differently. I’ve let go of a few traditions, at least for now. And I’ve added some new Advent traditions.

This is good. In my church tradition—that word!—Advent is the beginning of the liturgical church year, turning the page to tomorrow in expectation, hope, eagerness. You might feel this way on January 1. I am feeling this newness, this freshness this week.

So here’s where I’m starting in my home.

Simple, Faith-Filled Ways to Prepare for Christmas

1. Slowly decorating the house.

I usually host a few gatherings of friends and family early in December, but not this year. So no rush. And when I thought about it, honestly, this year it’ll probably just be me and my husband—maybe the kids, if everyone stays healthy. Just us to enjoy the decorating traditions we’ve created over the years—the banister greenery, a few Christmas Carol houses, the Christmas mugs and nutcrackers and bears and wreaths and candles. This year, I’m enjoying the slow unboxing of these things. I know for some of you, it works well to hurry up and get everything decorated so you can rest. But this year, I’m liking this. I might not even do it all. (Gasp.)

2. Simplifying my Christmas mug collection.

It’s one of the ways I like to kick off the season, sipping hot tea or coffee from my pretty holiday mugs. But do I need 12 mugs? Many were gifts from students. A couple are memory mugs from Christmas lunch with a dear friend and our daughters. We sat right next to the famous tree in the Chicago Marshall Fields department store when the girls were young enough to want to wander through the American Girls store afterwards. We have pictures and the memory. I don’t need the mugs.

My husband really prefers his regular year-round coffee mugs. This year I’m not going to make him drink coffee out of the Christmas one. (He’s a good sport and never complains except one year when I packed away all the regular mugs, so he had to use the Christmas ones.)

Today, I’m choosing two special Christmas mugs and donating the rest. Maybe this simplifying of Christmas collections can be a new Advent tradition as well.

3. Changing the light bulbs on our tree.

This is a big change. We have a lovely artificial tree which was once filled with tiny white lights, wrapped tightly around each and EVERY branch. Last year, we discovered that some of the strings had gone dark. We worked hours to bring this back to life—with bulb replacement, fuse replacement, and even a supposedly handy-dandy tool. “The Complete Tool to Fix Incandescent Light Sets.” Well, it didn’t work. Not easily. I despaired last year and ended up with a half-lit tree.

So last week, we faced the half-lit tree like David facing Goliath. It was scary. I was not brave. I was ready to toss out the whole thing. My husband is brave. He’s also not a throw-out person. No, no, no. He’s a fixer and a saver. So when we couldn’t fix it, he spent hours unwinding and clipping miles of light-strings. Miles. He’s a trooper.

We popped over to the local hardware store and found the old-fashioned big bulbs. Now if you haven’t explored that section of the hardware store, let me fill you in. There’s the C-9 bulbs that are really big. Those are maybe closer to what we had on our childhood Christmas tree. We opted to get the C-7 white bulbs. I spent ten minutes draping these around the tree, and it was easy and beautiful and a relief.

We are now big bulb tree people, and I love it.

4. Lighting the Advent candles.

We’ve used this in the past, years ago, but I got out of the habit as the kids grew older, we got busier, our table wasn’t big enough. Too hard to find the colored candles. Just excuses, I know. So this year I found some at our local delightful department store on the main street. I dusted off my gold wreath. We’re using this Advent devotion book each evening. It’s nothing complicated, but it’s a lovely way to pause and stay focused on what all the hub-bub this time of year is about.

5. Listening to new music.

Music opens the door to a million memories, doesn’t it? When I hear this, I am in the Arie Crown Theater at Chicago’s McCormick Place as a young ballet student mesmerized by the dance before me. (A lovely tradition.) Or I’m sitting with family making construction paper chains and listening to Andy Williams or Bing Crosby.

While I love the classics, I love finding new versions of classics. The author of the Advent book I mentioned earlier offers a Spotify playlist of gloriously new music like “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” (Sufjan Stevens). This is not your grandfather’’s church organ, but it’s a lovely and simple acoustic piece I’ve enjoyed. This year, I’m creating my own seasonal playlist with new favorites, and I think I’ll add discovering new music to my list of new Advent traditions.

6. Writing a Christmas letter.

Writing and sending a snail-mail Christmas card and a lovely (short) letter is a lovely Advent tradition–one that I have practiced on and off over the yeas. It gives you a chance to reflect on the past year and see Christ at work. And it’s a great way to remind yourself (and your Christmas-letter readers) of the reason we celebrate this season . . . the birth of Jesus Christ!

It’s best to do this together.

Bottom line. The Advent season is all about preparing for Christ. His first coming and His second coming, and waiting well. But not alone.

I love what Henri Nouwen says about waiting in community during this season:

How do we wait? One of the most beautiful passages of scripture is Luke 1:39-56, which suggests that we wait together, as did Mary and Elizabeth. What happened when Mary received the words of promise? She went to Elizabeth . . . I find the meeting of these two women very moving, because Elizabeth and Mary came together and enabled each other to wait . . . I think that is the model of the Christian community. It is a community of support, celebration, and affirmation in which we can lift up what has already begun in us. The visit of Elizabeth and Mary is one of the Bible’s most beautiful expressions of what it means to form community, to be together, gathered around a promise, affirming that something is really happening.

“Waiting for God,” Watch for the Light

Advent invites us to prepare our hearts together—just as Mary and Elizabeth did, waiting with faith and joy. As you experiment with these faith-filled ways to prepare for Christmas, may you find moments of peace and renewal.

Something is really happening.

Immanuel. God with us.

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