Photo by AForestFrolic

By Wendy Choy-Chan

A week after Halloween, stores were already selling Christmas merchandise.  Another week later, a radio station started playing Christmas songs nonstop.  The secular world is definitely eager for Christmas to come, and the church is not lagging behind by much.  Right after Thanksgiving, the church bulletin had an announcement for a Christmas celebration, and in worship service, we are singing Christmas carols because, as a friend puts it, we need to celebrate Christmas for more than just a week a year.

While I enjoy the Christmas spirit too, I am beginning to linger more on the Advent season. Maybe I am feeling contempt for the commercialism of the Christmas season, where it is all about presents and food.  Yes, Christmas is a time of giving, a time of getting together with family and friends, but the mentality for many has become “shop til you drop” and “eat til you drop.”  Or maybe I am feeling a little melancholy, with loved ones having passed away, no longer here to celebrate Christmas with us.  There is always this slight empty feeling as I go home for Christmas, as home is not what it used to be.  I truly want to go home, but I don’t know where “home” is.  That is why I am more at ease with Advent, with this feeling of waiting and longing — for the exile to end, for the Messiah to come and make things new.

As I dwell more on the Advent season, I begin to see new light.  I begin to see not only my own waiting and longing, but also the waiting and longing of other people in the world as there is so much suffering and pain around us.  Some dull their pain by shopping and eating, while others don’t even have a roof above their heads or food in their mouths.  However, this waiting and longing should not be one of despair, but of hope and in faith.  Even as the Jews waited during their exile, they knew the day would come when God would bring them home.  So, I too know that the day will come when I can truly go home and be with my loved ones.  Christmas is a reminder of that hope.  God has not left His people waiting in the dark, and He will not leave me waiting in the dark.  Because of Advent, I can better enter and appreciate the Christmas spirit.  Instead of shopping or eating til I drop, I’d now rather give to the homeless and other charities so that those who are suffering and in pain can experience and have this hope also.  I gather with family and friends, knowing that this is just a pre-celebration of the eventual homecoming in the new heaven and earth.  So right now, before Christmas comes, I choose to pause and make room for Advent.  Thus, no Christmas aisles in the stores and no Christmas radio stations for me for now.

Wendy Choy-Chan came to North America from Hong Kong when she was 15.  She is now a full-time mom and part-time student at Fuller Northwest studying for her MA in Theology.  She lives with her husband and two daughters in Seattle, WA.