Reflections

I tried to keep a sober Advent. It’s not a penitential season such as Lent but it’s certainly countercultural to keep things low key. In some ways the dratted virus has helped as we are not allowed to go to parties or gatherings. For the first time ever, I’ve burned every single Advent candle until the last drop of wax has evaporated. That’s a lot of praying. At the same time, we do not live off the grid and I swear every show on the cooking channels has featured Christmas baking since the day after Halloween. I am done with red and green, and chocolate as the fifth food group.

Now we are on Day 4 of the Christmas season. The fridge needs reorganization, the garbage is almost overflowing in the outside bin, the flowers are wilting, the Christmas lights seem faded. I am finding cookie crumbs everywhere and I cannot stomach the sight of any more baked goods. My husband wants steak and potatoes for dinner, I want to let my stomach feel hunger pangs for the first time in days. I am trying to continue to feel Christmas Joy but what I really want is a night of sleep that is uninterrupted by a yet another dosing of antacids at 3:00 am. Yet we are supposed to feast during the Octave, these 8 days of Christmas.

I have always found the 4 days between Boxing Day and New Years Eve to be confusing, mixed up, devoid of proper schedules and meals. It’s like time is a waiting room in a hospital. We are waiting for the death of the old year – which cannot come soon enough this particular year – and the birth of the new one. It is a good time to reflect and to plan. Except that nobody will ever look back on this “annus horribilis with undiluted pleasure” to paraphrase our monarch from a speech she gave in 1992 when 3 of her children split from their spouses and her favorite home/castle sustained extensive fire damage. It will be difficult to plan for 2021 as well, as we are going “into the unknown”, to quote my granddaughter’s favorite princess.

To prepare for the upcoming year I will take a page, a question really, out of the Baltimore Catechism. Question #2 asks,” why did God make you? God made me to know him, to love him, and to serve him in this world, and to be happy with him forever in the next.” How that transpires in 2021 will be anybody’s guess but if I put my trust in God, I can be as sure as Julian of Norwich when she promised, “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”