'Tis that magic season, once again. You know, the season where you scramble to the store because you forgot you needed sugar to make cranberry sauce. The season where you notice how suddenly the weather seems to have gotten cold. The season where you transition into Advent. What? You mean you haven't put up a tree yet, or bought a present for Great Aunt Matilda? B-b-but Dollar Tree has had its Christmas decorations for sale since mid October! Weren't you even a little bit tempted to give Christmas-tree-shaped candy corn to the little hobgoblins on Halloween?
Yes, you might have guessed it: I find the rush toward Christmas festivity a bit unnerving. I'm torn, you see, because on one hand I know that Advent is a penitential season; yet on the other hand, if I don't get into some sort of pre-Christmas spirit, I am too thoroughly depressed by December 25 to be in the right frame of mind to celebrate anything, let alone the birth of our Savior. So I give in to the decorations and at least some of the frivolity. But not in October!
The day after Thanksgiving marks the secular "official" transition into Christmas (Advent) season, though. And even though it's a few days early for the beginning of Advent, that's when I like to kick off the season myself. And though October may be too early to decorate the house, today is the perfect day to start cleaning it for the holidays. With that in mind, I joined FLYlady.
This season is important to my sense of tradition. I try to have a pretty tree and a few household decorations, but I try to balance it with more prayer, and songs about the Nativity. I especially like "O Come O Come Emmanuel" because it's seasonally accurate. Yes, it's still a penitential season. And at the moment I can't think of anything more penitential for me to do than clean my house.
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