Advent

Christians celebrate Hannukah? Or are do you mean Jewish celebration of Hanukkah overshadows Advent?

 

Advent is a wonderful time of looking forward to the celebration of the Saviour's birth...

 

Is this Messianics that celebrate? Or also in Orthodoxy? This question is in regard to Hanukkah.

 

About celebrating Advent. To me, that would be like asking if Christians celebrate Lent? For one thing, it is a period of reflection and penitence, so celebration seems out of place in any case. But also, it covers quite a long period of time.

 

I like to think all the preparations to observe Christmas are celebrating Advent. The Scriptures describe the birth of Jesus as a wondrous, joyful, 'magical' event. So I don't feel at all guilty observing it as such including doing those things that prepare us for the event. I love seeing our street decked out with lovely Christmas lights. I love playing all our great Christmas albums. I love decorating our own home to commemorate the season. I love the joy in the faces of the Children and that people tend to remember the less fortunate more.

And I love the tradition of the Hanging of the Greens at Church and the lighting of the Advent candles at Sunday worship and singing the great Christmas hymns. I think it is important to remember and acknowledge Jesus as the reason for the season in the first place.

What I don't like is the stress of obligatory gift giving--spending the same on each family member, same number of gifts, and the sheer expense of doing that when not a single one of us NEEDS anything. So we have started a family tradition of exchanging ONE significant gift--not necessarily expensive but thoughtful/significant--between families and putting what we save in the Salvation Army kettle or giving to some other worthy charity. That plus no longer trying to outdo anybody in decor has eliminated the stress and made the season joyful for many of us again.

 

I don't think so. Lent is about penance. Advent is about preparation, expectation, understanding the significance of God becoming one of us to live among us. There is no way that such can be a solemn thing.

 

I do Celebrate Advent. I just received my Advent book of daily devotionals free from the Unity Church. I have read many different books but the Unity Church's advent guides are year and and year out my favorite.

 

I observe Advent, yes.

Traditionally, Advent is a penitential season marked by fasting, prayer, alms-giving etc in a similar way to Lent. (They both started as periods of fasting in preparation for baptisms on the great feast days that follow them).

Personally, I find fasting in Advent a helpful counterpoint to the consumerist frenzy that tends to grip our society at that time of year.

 

We do the advent wreath and the advent calendar, and I love the way Episcopal churches work Advent into the Sunday services
Oddly enough, while I like the Unity church Advent book the best, I did not like the advent church services there. The Christmas eve service was very quiet, very meditative but it does not compare in the aesthetic beauty of an Episcopal high mass service. I look forward to Midnight Mass as the highlight of Christmas.