Category Archives: Advent

Nov 25 2014
4 Comments
Advent, Thanksgiving

Thankful

Rouge vif Detampes

This chapter of the Book of Days Blog comes to you from Table #12 at the Farmer Girl Restaurant on North Dixie Highway in Lake Worth, where I almost always see someone I know (this morning it’s Frank: Howdy Frank!) and where each Thanksgiving, Pete Roubekas, the owner, serves up a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, turkey and dressing and cranberry sauce and all the trimmings, on the house, for anyone who has no place to go… be it no family to cook for or no invitation to accept or decline or even no home to call their own. Pete’s been doing this for 30 years now, but that’s Pete, and that’s the spirit of this town. Sure, there are plenty of not-so-great folks here (don’t fall for the story of the woman who says her scooter’s broken down and needs to borrow 20 bucks––her scooter’s been broken down for as long as Pete’s been serving free Thanksgiving dinners), but people like Pete make Lake Worth what it is: a solid community, filled with people who are willing to take care of you, even when you don’t necessarily feel you deserve it. We are content, and we are thankful. The two go hand in hand.

I love that Pete does this. Another thing I like about Pete is the fact that his place is decorated today with pumpkins and dried corn. It’s clear the man is ready for Thanksgiving. And there is not a hint of yuletide cheer to be found. Which, we heartily believe, is how it should be.

If you know us well, you know Seth and I refer to this as the Slow Christmas Movement. You’ll be hard pressed to find anyone who loves Christmas as much as we do, but we don’t like seeing Christmas throwing its weight around and bullying lesser holidays. Especially Thanksgiving, which, each year, seems to get swallowed up by Christmas more and more so that it seems like one long holiday from our day of thanks all the way through the 25th of December.

Each year, we issue an invitation: Join us in the Slow Christmas Movement. Take your time. Enjoy Thanksgiving and all its autumnal bounty. What comes next––and this year it begins on the Sunday after Thanksgiving––is Advent, a time of preparation for Christmas. The nights grow increasingly darker and we acknowledge this by illuminating more and more candles on the Advent wreath as we approach Christmas. And each night we light our daily Advent candle during dinner. We watch it get smaller and smaller as Christmas approaches. And then, before bed each night, we open another window of the Advent calendar to see what surprise awaits us there. Here’s a secret: We like to hold the open calendar window up to a light source from behind, so the picture in the window glows.

If these seem like simple celebrations, they are. And that’s the point. Christmas is a big deal. It comes in with a bang and it actually lasts for another twelve days after Christmas Day. Those are the Twelve Days of Christmas we sing about in the famous carol, running all the way up to the 6th of January. So why rush now? There’s plenty of time to enjoy Christmas once it comes, but for now, enjoy Thanksgiving. Be like Pete. Be thankful and give each day its time and space.

*

At our website, www.conviviobookworks.com, you’ll find all kinds of traditional German Advent calendars (the ones with lots of glitter you remember from your childhood) as well as British ones, and some very lovely Advent candles, two of which are handmade in England.

 

Image: One extremely beautiful Rouge vif D’Etampes pumpkin, given to me by a very kind person who knows how much I love heritage pumpkins. The world is full of kind people.

 

 

Dec 20 2013
2 Comments
Advent, Christmas, Solstice

In the Bleak Midwinter

Winter Solstice

Here in the Northern Hemisphere, it is the darkest time of year and tomorrow, December 21, the darkest night: the bleak midwinter. The sun reaches its southernmost point in the sky and then begins the journey north again. For a couple of days, the sun appears to be still, which is where the word solstice comes in (the Latin sol stetit, “sun stands still”). It is our own planet, of course, that is doing the shifting north and south, creating our seasons, but as we watch the sun rise and set lower and lower in the sky with each passing day, it is easy to imagine the sun as journeyer, and perhaps we all are on our individual journeys, sun and earth, you and me, constantly changing.

Now begins our real celebration of the season. We’ve watched the nights grow longer and longer through Advent, and we’ve lit more and more candles to counter the darkness. By Sunday, all four candles of the Advent wreath will be lit. It is no accident that Church elders placed the birth of Jesus Christ at the Winter Solstice. He is born, child of wonder, bringing light to the world, part of a tradition of gods from antiquity born at this darkest time of year: Sol (the unconquered sun), Apollo, Mithras.

No matter what associations you bring to the Solsticetide, the solstice night itself is worthy of marking. In this house, our celebration will be simple: last year, after Twelfth Night, we set the old Christmas tree in a quiet corner of the garden, and on this darkest night of the year, we’ll retrieve it and build a fire with that wood. It is, after all, fire that was most common in our ancestors’ celebrations of this night: fire to call down the power of the sun, to help the sun along, to be born again. Our solstice fire will be outdoors, in the sacred quiet of the back yard in the close and holy darkness, but yours could be in the hearth. If a fire is not possible, a lit candle will do nicely. Something good to drink is appropriate: a spicy dark Christmas ale, perhaps. Splurge a little; this night comes but once a year. We suggest you seek a strong ale in a tall bottle sealed with a cork. Our favorites this time of year include St. Bernardus Christmas Ale, spicy with cloves, brewed in the Trappist tradition in Belgium, and Baladin Nora, an Italian brew spiced with ginger, myrrh, and orange peel. The corked Nora bottle is sealed in wax, while twisted wire holds down the cork of the St. Bernardus bottle. Either choice will bring ceremony to the night.

You may find that in these hectic days that lead up to Christmas, in our frenetic preparations for one important day, it may be the quiet and peaceful ceremonies, like this one, that bring you the most joy and meaning. Please keep in mind that that one special day is just a beginning to what can be a really special season of twelve days. The Book of Days, certainly, will cover those days as they come. If you’ve ever felt disappointed and let down once Christmas Day has passed, we are here to help you overcome that and find meaning in each day through the 6th of January and beyond.

And so Winter begins by the almanac. By traditional reckoning of time, however, winter has been with us since Hollantide, which is why you hear so many traditional carols refer to this time as midwinter, for it truly is. From now through to the next solstice, in June, light will be increasing with each day. Now we begin to come out of winter’s dark grip. It will be a slow and gradual process, but such is the nature of the seasons.

On this darkest of nights, we salute you, we bid you peace. The bleak midwinter gathers us up in its cloak, but light is returning. Welcome Yule!

Image: Winter in La Grange, Illinois.

Dec 01 2013
Advent

Preparing

Preparing

Today begins the Advent season, a time of preparation for Christmas. Here in the Northern Hemisphere, the nights grow increasingly darker on the road toward the Winter Solstice, and we counter that increasing darkness by increasing light from within. The sun may be growing weaker, sinking lower and lower in the sky, but each Sunday, beginning tonight, we light more and more candles in our homes. The tradition in most places is a ring of four candles, three of which are purple, one rose (or pink). Some cultures use three blue candles and a white one in place of the purple and rose candles, but the sentiment is the same. The first purple candle is lit tonight, on the First Sunday of Advent: one candle in the darkness. Come the Second Sunday, we light two purple candles. The Third Sunday of Advent is known as Gaudete Sunday and we light those same two purple candles plus the rose one, to symbolize a hint of joy and greater excitement as we get closer to Christmas. And on the Fourth Sunday of Advent, all four candles are lit. By then, we are deep into the darkest nights of the year, and our four candles are quite a beacon of light, and of hope.

This year, the Fourth Sunday of Advent happens to be the day after the Winter Solstice, which will occur on the 21st of December: the bleak Midwinter. In our brightly illuminated 21st century world, it can be easy to fall out of sync with the ever changing push and pull of our planet’s cycles of darkness and light, but it is this constant rearrange that is at the heart of so many of our customs and celebrations, the ceremonies of each day. Imagine a time before electricity, and it’s easy to understand the power of these cycles.

Earlier on, Advent began on the 12th of November, the day after Martinmas, and was a time of fasting in the Catholic Church in preparation for Christmas. This is no longer the case, even in the Church, but the idea of preparation, making our homes (and hearts) as fair as we are able, continues. In this house, we are firm believers in the idea that in order to fully appreciate the joy of Christmas, you need to set the stage for needing joy. This is the value of Advent. It doesn’t matter if your approach is a religious one or a secular one. Advent is a good time to do things with care. It’s a good time to make amends. If there are wrongs in your life, it’s a good time to make things right. Approach these darkening nights with this spirit of openness and thanksgiving and your joy at Christmastime, when it arrives, will be great indeed.

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