Bigger isn’t always better: Preparing for Christmas during Advent

In our secularized world, it can be so difficult to focus on the positives, on the true meaning of the Advent season. While shopping for that perfect gift can be a blast, does it really prepare you for welcoming Christ on his birthday?

Don’t get me wrong, I love shopping just as much as the next twenty-something female, but as I approached Advent this year, I felt a pull in my heart to take a look at my life to see what things I needed to give a good, hard polish. Not only did I want to prep those perfectly wrapped-and-ribboned gifts under my tree, I also wanted to prepare my heart.

While I wracked my brain for ideas about how to prepare my heart for Christ, I did a little Facebooking and came across a beautiful picture of an Advent calendar in which each candle was labelled with a different word. And there it was: my model for Advent!

Each week in Advent, the Church invites us to focus on a virtue that Jesus brings into our lives: Hope, Peace, Joy and Love. In the first two weeks of Advent, the focus should be on getting ready for Jesus’ second coming; the latter two weeks are about preparation for his coming at Christmas as a little child.

There are so many things we could do and so many different ways we could grow in these virtues during these four weeks, but I realized that if I wanted to be successful, I needed to keep it simple. So here are a few things I learned in planning my own Advent journey.

1. Keep it simple! When making changes to our lives and habits, bigger isn’t always better. Have you ever noticed that those New Year’s resolutions people make to work out every day or stop eating carbs usually fail within the first month? That’s because we’ve bitten off more than we can chew. Start small by saying a prayer of thanksgiving when you wake up in the morning or reading Scripture for 15 minutes.
2. Allow each week to build on the last. In the first week, we focus on hope and in the second we focus on peace. All the virtues are linked in some way, and if we only did one at a time and never kept up what we did in the past, the virtues we’ve already looked at will fall to the wayside. We should choose our areas of growth incrementally and wisely.
3. Make a good confession! I plan on going each week during this Advent season (that’s a lot, I know, but I need the grace!). There are times when we all fail to put God and the pursuit of virtue first, and this season is a great time to humbly admit that and resolve to improve. The best way to grow in virtue is to first get rid of vices to allow room for those virtues to grow.

When it comes to preparing for Jesus’ coming this Christmas, a lot of preparation is needed, but that doesn’t mean it has to be complicated. Start small and you’ll be surprised where God leads you. If you need some inspiration, check out our diocesan Advent calendar. 

What are you doing to prepare for Christmas during Advent? Share your thoughts and ideas with us in the comments below!