Advent, COVID and Year End

No guest today! Just Danielle and Maggie. We can talk about a lot things…. But we wanted to talk to what it’s been like to have our kids back to in-person school, COVID updates, Advent and Year End.

Maggie said, yes let’s start with Advent. It’s the season we’re in, both in the Church Calendar and in our lives with COVID. It’s the waiting, the darkness, but also the anticipation. This is parallel to the long season of COVID we’re in.

For Maggie’s family:

• Historically kids have done the little chocolate calendars and it taught them about anticipation in a very embodied sense—every morning they woke up with excitement to go to the calendar and the anticipation as the calendar was a countdown of sorts until Christmas Day.
• It lacked spiritual depth and connection
• Last year we used Advent Conversation cards from “Kids Read Truth” – these were fabulous as they had varying prompts for kids of different ages so each child was able to engage the conversation at their level of understanding.
• This year we are doing a “Jesse Tree” – which helps connect the customs of decorating the Christmas Tree to events leading up to Jesus’ birth. “The ornaments of the Jesse tree tell the story of God in the Old Testament, connecting the Advent season with the faithfulness of God across thousands of years of history.”
• Also this year, more aware of the Advent candles – I’ve always seen them but this year I am learning their meaning and hope that in the future I can incorporate that into what we do as a family.
• Learning about the advent candles of – Hope, Faith, Joy and Peace
• What I’m seeing around my community: I have a number of friends that are using An Advent devotional put out by “Reclaiming my Theology” – My people are examining and rethinking right now. They are processing harmful and bad theology and trying to reclaim their faith -- They are recreating, reimagining, reconnecting in new and deeper ways. It’s truly beautiful to watch and come along side.

For Danielle, Advent start with her daughter Julie. She usually pulks out paper and draws a nativity scene. Five years ago, when she was only nine years old, she painted the nativity scene on a wall of their house. You can see this years’ drawing (it’s on Instagram and is the cover art for this podcast episode)—all the people in the scene have their eyes closed, but the animals and the angels have their eyes open. Baby Jesus is portrayed as a tried, maybe even a little frustrated, baby that’s sleep is being interrupted by the crowd.

They’re family also does the Chocolate calendars and Marvel LEGO advent (Maggie too!)

Danielle’s grandma passed away right before Thanksgiving; she just feels dead tired. In those places where she’s desired to be more intentional, she just feels she can’t. The memorial service was help far away and so she and her family watched via live stream. She noticed the next day that her kids just couldn’t settle, they just wanted to lay around. It’s felt like a passing of a generation and the tiredness of the year they’ve had. So on Sunday, rather then attending or listening to a church service, they just gathered in their living room and watched Pentatonix music videos, singing along and talking about which Christmas carol they feel most connected to. So overall this year’s advent has been more informal or maybe less intentional for their family, but no less meaningful.

Maggie loves how Julie is leading this space for her family. She too loves seeing her Advent drawings every year. And that because Julie has painted a nativity scene on the wall of their house, it’s up all year round.

Maggie totally feels the tired weariness Danielle is talking about. She said by odd coincidence or God’s intentional plan, her grandma also passed away, the day after Thanksgiving. She’s tired, dead tired, and sometimes feels not in to Christmas this year. For instance, she has one strand of lights up on her house when normally she would do the whole house… But that is the amount of energy she has for it this year: one strand on the front of the house. And it doesn’t feel any less meaningful or intentional, like Danielle said, it is just the capacity that their family has right now for the season they are in.

Danielle said it also speaks to the long season that we’ve all been in for COVID. She knows that other people have experienced far more death than she. And yet, we’re coming up on two years and this Christmas is one that feels more like normal…. To have a death in her family feels like, “really?!?” Her favorite Christmas Carol is “O Holy Night” and there’s a line about “the weary world rejoices,” and she feels like, yeah that’s where we’re at right now. Profound weariness of a COVID season that is coming up on two years.

Maggie says yes, it has been a long two years; in fact it has felt like five years. Part of the weariness for Maggie is this feeling “when will this end?” I’ve stopped watching the COVID numbers in our area because it was easy to ride it like an emotional rollercoaster. She’s had friends and family near and far see loved ones get sick, a few who passed away, more who’ve recovered and some with long term lasting side effects. She’s watched and experienced myself the divisiveness of vaccines and how there’s a strong sense of the binary nature of things – “it’s either this or that” without holding space for complexity or nuance. The increased emotional disruption, the increased anxiety, loneliness, and social pressure…It is affecting everyone, this long haul.

Danielle’s seen increase in depression and anxiety, connectedness and disconnectedness. Almost everyone is having conversations around vaccines, mask wearing, racism, systemic oppression, critical race theory, natural disasters. She told the Lord, really? You couldn’t have waited on that?? It’s a cocktail storm—at times there are breaks where you can se