If you’ve ever seen the movie National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, then you’ve caught a small glimpse of me around the Holidays in the character of Clark Griswald. I start listening to Christmas music around October, and begrudgingly take down the last of my decorations mid-February. I stretch the festivities to their breaking point, and then do one final yank for good measure. It’s been this way since I was a kid: the anticipation, the impatience, the joy…the sweaters. The only difference now, as an adult, is that I am forced to constantly combat the advertising and consumerism that tries to usurp the simple happiness I am trying to so desperately retain from my childhood.

Advent and Christmas, for me, are parts of a whole. The spirit of Christmas fuels the expectation of Advent which in turn amplifies the joy of Christmas which expresses the longing of Advent…ad infinitum…and a partridge in a pear tree.

The story of Jesus’ birth is an incredible one: the culmination of centuries of prophecy and signposts, the concentrated totality of an all-loving God, captured in the constricting flesh and muscle of an infant. But just as the gifts under our tree point towards the expectation of opening them in their fullness, just as the decorations of the season represent the epitome of a happiness and hope that will be grounded back into a lesser reality on December 26^th—the birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus were moments in time that leave us, the Church, to now recognize the brokenness around us and glimpse forward towards His return in glory—towards the second Advent.

Call me a geek about it, but I feel like the spirit of Christmas is a fairly decent analogy of the Holy Spirit. After the decorations are down, put back in their bins and stowed away for the Spring, we can go throughout our year with the hope that we will one day soon be consumed by the festivities anew. The hope and joy, that in the midst of an oftentimes cynical and hopeless society, that is so beautifully demonstrated during Christmas can be carried in us throughout the year.

And after He ascended, taking His seat next to the Father, we can go throughout our lives with the hope that a new Kingdom is coming anew, one that will remove all things that would seek to taint our hope, joy, and love. The Holy Spirit, left for God’s followers at Pentecost, empowers us throughout our years.

This Advent season, remember the simple joy of a God that is crazy enough about you to be here with you as a baby—because one day He will be here with you as a King.

I’m going to go and listen to Mariah Carey’s Christmas album now.

Join The Conversation

What parts of your Holiday celebration have remained as simple as they were when you were a kid?

What parts of the Advent season to you carry with you throughout the year?