Advent Season

This year Josh and I have been preparing for Christmas by celebrating the Advent season. Josh's family has done it before, but I never really have. I remember vaguely lighting candles for it at the church we went to when I was a small child, but besides that I really didn't know anything about it.

Advent season began last Sunday. We started by setting up our Advent wreath. It's a circle with evergreens, gold, white and red berries, and pinecones. (Oh, and poinsettia flowers because, well, they're just so pretty.) There is five candles, three purple, one pink, and the center candle is white.

To quote from our little book:
There are five candles. The candles for the first, second, and fourth Sundays are purple to symbolize our penitence and preparation. The candle for the third Sunday is pink as a symbol of joy. The third Sunday of Advent is Gaudete Sunday (gaudete is Latin for “Rejoice Ye”). Because Jesus has come, we have reason to rejoice! A larger, white candle is placed in the middle and is the Christ candle, which is lit on Christmas Eve.

Today is the beginning of the second week of Advent, which is marked by lighting the second candle, the Bethlehem Candle. Last week's candle was the Prohesy Candle. Our devotional each night last week was mostly out of Isaiah and all regarding, of course, the prophecies of the coming Messiah.

At first I was thinking that sitting down with Josh everynight to read scripture and do a devotional, as well as light a candle with some traditional religious meaning, well, I thought that was a little strange. It didn't help that he thinks it is so normal. His family did it every Christmas season. My family? We prepared for Christmas by... uhm, putting up a Christmas tree. And arguing about the Christmas tree the coming days leading up to Christmas. (It's leaning!! Can't you see it leaning? No, left! Right! Left! Ugh, there's needles everywhere. Hey, who broke my icicle ornament?!)

Although I was leary at first, when the first night of Advent came I was excited. The second night I was looking forward to it. As I look back on this week, even though we missed a night or two and had to make it up, it was really great. Sitting, talking, praying together, and all about Jesus. Really, I get these four weeks to just sit everynight and learn about Jesus, the prophecies about him, the events that took place around his birth, and God's ultimate plan of Salvation. And I get to do it with my best friend, Josh, who I can ask anything and we can find the answer and he doesn't judge.

You can download the material we're using because, from what I understand, it was written by Josh's family. I think it's really great, me and Josh typed it up into a word document in order to have a digital copy and edit minor grammar and punctuation mistakes. We passed it out to the church this morning as the church is doing Advent each Sunday, too.