Advent, Part One
Travel Journal, 110
What makes the perfect Christmas? Could it be the anticipation of setting up the tree? Barely making it past Thanksgiving before it goes up? Could it be family traditions? How about the food, gift-giving, shopping, get-togethers, or the Grinch?
Is there a recipe for the idyllic Christmas?
My wife and I went looking for that answer one year. We packed a weekend bag, boarded a plane, then watched expectantly as we descended through the clouds, making our pilgrimage to the land of Christmastide. What better place to look than the one state whose very existence serves to fuel Christmas dream?
Ah, Vermont. Thou home of nearly every Hallmark movie. We had found a nice deal on a romantic backwoods’ inn in the quaint village of Chester, Vermont. I had scoured the depths of the internet to find a great place to spend an ideal Christmas weekend. The results astounded me. Every town in Vermont is an ideal place to spend Christmas. So I picked, at random, a little town with a little inn. Not a hotel. Not a motel. An inn. And I tell you, there’s a difference.
You stay at a hotel because you get to.
You stay at a motel because you have to.
But you stay at an inn because want to. An inn beckons people. Even Joseph and Mary wanted to stay in one (no room). Quaint inns dot Thomas Kinkade paintings and can be found in fantasy novels.
And the Fullerton Inn is the quaintest.
The lovely New England inn is nestled gently in the northern Appalachian Mountains. Each of the windows bore shutters. And the many railings displayed numerous wreaths. We walked in and immediately knew we were in the right place. The place was hung with green. A blaze roared inside the stone fireplace. But above all, the simply enormous Christmas tree caught our eye. As we walked through the entry ogling it, a small bustle of ladies scooted by and one of them stopped near us.
“Oh, you’ll have to excuse the mess,” she declared, “the whole town is getting ready for the Christmas festival!”
Literally, just like a Hallmark movie.
That week we saw carolers and Santas, ate gingerbread cookies, and drank hot chocolate. We’d never been so nostalgic about Christmas—never had such an idyllic and festive time. We talk about it every year.
But neither nostalgia nor Christmassy romance can fill the heart-sized void that all men and women feel. The traditional Christian celebration called Advent (Latin for the coming) begins on Sunday, November 28th this year.
And the first week is all about hope.
I can’t speak for you, but the reason Christmas means so much to me is that I yearn for it. We’ve spent a full year building to something. All the other holidays are over. I’m looking into the next year, worried about whatever is to come. But as soon as I dig out my copy of A Christmas Carol and hear the Hallelujah chorus from Handel’s Messiah, I start to feel that draw. The nostalgia, warmth, expectation, longing, desire, and everything else I can’t put my finger on all comes crashing in on me. And that’s the way it should be. For the Christian, we use this time of Advent to focus on the One true gift of Jesus Christ—God Himself come to earth *to seek and to save that which was lost.
That feeling of longing and waiting is good. Use it. Watch your Hallmark movies (the Fullerton Inn was featured in this one). Drink that second cup of hot chocolate. String popcorn and cranberries (google it). And feel that draw. Something, Someone, good is coming.
The draw you feel this year; all that nostalgia and expectation weighing on you, I say, look to Jesus this Christmas season. Remember His coming. He makes each Christmas idyllic.
anthony forrest
Follow along with the Advent tradition! Here are a few passages of Scripture for this week’s theme:
Hope