If there’s one season that the church desperately needs to reclaim, it’s Advent. Every year, it seems like stores display the Christmas decorations earlier and earlier, starting at the end of September this year. They used to at least wait until after Halloween, but not anymore.

Christmas has always been my favorite season of the year, and when I first heard about some of the concepts of Advent, especially some ideas of waiting to display decorations, doing things in stages and so forth, I was skeptical, and worried that my favorite holiday would be diminished. Instead, I discovered quite the opposite. Practicing Advent as a time of waiting and reflection adds to the season in many ways.

A typical Christmas season is filled with parties, events, special services at church, parties at school, parties at the office, and did I mention, parties? Oh, and the seemingly never ending Christmas shopping with all of its intricate balances of what did I get him/her last year, did he/she give me anything, should I get so-and-so something this year because they gave me something last year and I feel bad about not giving them anything and on and on.

Something in me recoils at this sort of activity as much as I love to give people gifts. But somehow gift giving at Christmas all too often becomes an exercise in obligation and debt instead of joyfully reaching out to people in celebration of our Savior’s birth and expectation of his return.

And I have to ask, with this sort of activity as the norm in our culture, what exactly are we modeling for our kids?

If Advent is supposed to be in some ways like Lent, a time of expectation and reflection, then what of that ethos are we teaching those younger than us who are looking up to us for clues on how life is to be lived?

What if instead of shopping for trinkets just to have something to give to so-and-so, we sat down and wrote them a letter instead? Takes too much time? How much time do we spend fighting crowds in shopping malls during the average Christmas season?

What if instead of dragging our kids with us on one of these mass shopping experiences, we made a point to volunteer for a few hours at an organization that gives Christmas things to families that can’t afford them?

What if we made a point of bringing an advent wreath and the devotional times that can go along with that into the home and used it as a starting point for some sort of regular family devotionals?

What would it look like if this season could be one of less stress instead of more stress? One of more time with God, instead of less?

What if instead of gorging our own kids on gifts on Christmas morning, we taught them something about moderation and helped them donate some money to an organization to help needy children instead of spending it all on things for them that they probably don’t really need?

Am I just saying get rid of the gifts, or stick with socks and underwear for presents? Not at all! We serve a God that loves to give good gifts to his children and to do that in abundance beyond even what we need. But he also loves to see his children following in his example, and during this season of Advent, that’s something we can help our children and teens to start living into.

Other ways we can heighten the expectation is by not putting out all of our decorations at once. We can space it out so that the amount grows as each week of Advent passes. Many families already do this with their nativity scenes, even keeping the wise men out of the picture until Epiphany, and thus prolonging the season after December 25th all the way to it’s proper ending on January 7th (Epiphany). We can put the tree up later, decorate it in stages, space out opening presents from Christmas Eve all the way to Epiphany and making sure that each present is enjoyed completely instead of being immediately set aside while the next one is ripped into.

Note, all of these are just ideas, each of us can figure out what works best with our family, developing our own Advent traditions as we go along. It’s simply important, I believe, to figure out some ways of practicing Advent with our kids that make it stand out as a season of waiting, of reflection, and of expectation, all things that require us to slow down and purposefully step out of the overwhelming rush of the way our country dives headlong into the Christmas season.

If the whole purpose of the Advent season is to celebrate the birth and second coming of Jesus, then shouldn’t all we do in the Advent season be centered around him? What would that look like?