When Advent Leaves You Exhausted
I had grand visions for commemorating Advent with my kids when they were growing up.
The candles had other ideas.
I envisioned a serene family gathering filled with reflection and togetherness. But this didn't materialize. Instead, Advent became a series of mishaps involving arguments, sibling rivalries, and a match-to-candle ratio that showed something serious was amiss.
But I share more here than relaying a family story. Rather, to encourage you to remember nurturing a child's faith is more like growing an apple tree than a radish. It requires time, care, and the understanding that immediate results are not always visible.
You don't measure impact by immediacy. You'll smile along as you hear how this truth got lived out in my attempts to celebrate Advent.
Empower yourself and your family to engage fully in God’s grand story. Subscribe to Hi(Impact) at Stephanie Presents for insights, encouragement, and practical resources!
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#advent
Transcript
Have you ever sat down with your family to celebrate Advent or another Christmas celebration, trying to pull your children in to appreciate and remember the true meaning of Christmas, only to end the time exhausted and maybe even a little angry?
Speaker A:Well, if so, you're not alone.
Speaker A:Stay tuned and be encouraged.
Speaker B:From my story if your desire is to become spiritually stronger, emotionally healthier, and relationally smarter, you're at the right place.
Speaker B:Speaker and writer Stephanie Smith inspires and equips you to achieve these three key aims.
Speaker B:If you're a parent, you'll also learn how to raise empowered kids ready for adulthood.
Speaker B:Let's get started.
Speaker A:Today's episode is specifically geared for parents who still have kids at home.
Speaker A:But if you're not in that category, hey, that's okay.
Speaker A:We invite you, listen in.
Speaker A:You can take away all of the good stuff and you don't have to deal with the hard stuff.
Speaker A:Before we dive in, I just want to encourage you.
Speaker A:I know that this is a busy month and before you let it get away, make sure to go to the website Stephanie presents.com and sign up for my weekly newsletter, High Impact.
Speaker A:You're going to be able to have encouragement and resources and content and links every single week that can help you to be spiritually strong, emotionally healthy, and relationally smart and raise your kids to be that way as well.
Speaker A:It's a great resource.
Speaker A:You know, sometimes it's just one idea.
Speaker A:It's one insight.
Speaker A:It's one resource that makes all the difference and helps us to solve a problem and move on with life.
Speaker A:Well, let's get back to what I opened with in today's episode.
Speaker A:Years ago, when my own five sons were still at home, I had these brilliant ideas and these hopeful anticipation of celebrating Advent together as a family.
Speaker A:Now, this was not a tradition that I grew up with, and I knew when I first started getting into it I would have to make our Advent candle wreath a little different.
Speaker A:You see, with five suns and a traditional Advent wreath of only four candles, I had a pretty good idea that this was going to lead to some squabbles over who got to light what candle.
Speaker A:So I designed our own Advent centerpiece and I made sure that there were five candles.
Speaker A:They were all the same size, stacked in a not exactly a pyramid shape, but in an arc and covered with gold and red and white poinsettias.
Speaker A:So it wasn't exactly your traditional Advent wreath.
Speaker A:But it's okay.
Speaker A:It worked for us.
Speaker A:And then I found and purchased a beautiful book and each page was on very hard, not just typical cardstock but almost like cardboard weight paper.
Speaker A:And as you opened each page, there would be a door that you could open.
Speaker A:And there was a short scripture verse, and it had beautiful artwork.
Speaker A:And each day we would read one new very short reading.
Speaker A:And as the boys were old enough, then they could take their turn reading as well.
Speaker A:That was it.
Speaker A:All we wanted to do was gather around the table, light the candles, read this very short reading, say a prayer, maybe have a very short conversation about the meaning of Christmas.
Speaker A:The whole thing shouldn't have taken more than, say, 10, 15 minutes tops.
Speaker A:And it would be a delightful time, right?
Speaker A:I mean, I had high anticipation at the beginning.
Speaker A:I thought everybody would already have their baths, and they would come downstairs and they would be in their PJs and their faces would be clean, and they would eagerly sit up at the table smiling in anticipation of the night's reading.
Speaker A:But eventually I kind of let go of that because I thought as long as they'd had their bath, they didn't have too much dirt between their toes and some level of shampoo had touched their hair, however briefly.
Speaker A:I could settle for that.
Speaker A:Instead of a picture setting of everybody in adorable matching flannel pajamas, I had just decided it was okay to just show up with something more than your underwear.
Speaker A:Now, I was homeschooling at the time.
Speaker A:And so we would gather around the very same table in our formal dining room where we had been having school throughout the day.
Speaker A:And that meant that that table had hosted math lessons, which eventually included tears.
Speaker A:Also fun art and craft projects.
Speaker A:History discussions had taken place around that table.
Speaker A:And then there was the unending pile of needs to be folded and sorted and put away laundry.
Speaker A:And there were also protests that took place over this table over an unfair parental decision.
Speaker A:So I just wanted, for a few moments, just for a few weeks out of the year, this wooden witness to everyday life that could just testify for a few moments of peace on earth, goodwill to men.
Speaker A:Doesn't seem that that's how it turned out.
Speaker A:Instead, it seemed to create more arguments than my insistence that, yes, they had to go back and redo the math problems that they had missed, and yes, they had to show their work.
Speaker A:It turns out the problem was the candles.
Speaker A:I mean, how hard could it be for everybody to light and then later extinguish one candle?
Speaker A:Turns out astonishingly difficult.
Speaker A:Those five tiny wax torches ignited nightly arguments.
Speaker A:You see, here's how it went.
Speaker A:Before the reading began, someone invariably forgot and lit more candles than just their own.
Speaker A:This meant the offended party or parties had to distinguish their candle and then relight it, which sometimes meant they forgot or moved their match and lit somebody else's candle.
Speaker A:And whenever this happened, this was accompanied usually with dramatic gestures and steely eyes that shot nonverbal messages to the offender.
Speaker A:This was not peace on earth, goodwill to mend.
Speaker A:Finally, once all the five tapers were lit by the correct party, it would be time for the night's reading to begin.
Speaker A:Everyone could settle down and just listen.
Speaker A:Could did not turn out to be dead.
Speaker A:It seems the wicks were wicked because during the reading the dancing flames on the candles captivated my boy's attention.
Speaker A:They seemed to be more intent on just how hard they could exhale their breath to make the flames quiver without entirely going out all the way.
Speaker A:And this invariably cued someone else to accuse, either in muttering form or trumpeting loudly, he insert sibling's name is blowing on my candle.
Speaker A:In addition to these incendiary incidents, there was the usual assortment of making faces, picking noses, and then crossing with one's elbow, foot, head or finger the invisible lines defining personal space boundaries.
Speaker A:Did I mention everybody was long out of diapers when this was still going on?
Speaker A:My images of five young men all sitting up in their chairs, faces attentively listening to the reading, pondering with depth, the meaning of Christmas had been relinquished along with the matching flannel pajamas.
Speaker A:Instead, it was just a matter of if they stayed anywhere in the proximity of the room and out the table.
Speaker A:So we had a variety of physical displays of dexterity going on here.
Speaker A:There was the sloucher, there was the yawner, there was the squirmer, there was the off the chair slider, there was the personal space invader, all going on.
Speaker A:And sometimes somebody had the creativity to be more than one.
Speaker A:But whenever the reading was over and the prayer had ended, all of a sudden everything dramatically changed.
Speaker A:The sloucher sat up straight as a two by four.
Speaker A:The yawner became as alert as an ambulance driver, the squirmer was as still as a marble statue.
Speaker A:And the off the chair slider became as poised as an etiquette instructor.
Speaker A:And the personal space invader, well, he became as self contained as an astronaut that was strapped in for launch.
Speaker A:Why?
Speaker A:Because now it was time to blow out the candles.
Speaker A:This became an ordeal which mirrored very closely to what it was like to have the candles lit in the first place.
Speaker A:Someone invariably forgot and blew out someone else's candle along with their own.
Speaker A:It was just an extra puff in the wrong direction.
Speaker A:This meant that that candle's custodian demanded their rights to relight the candle themselves, of course, so they could then be the proper person to blow it out.
Speaker A:You know, the ratio of matches to candles demonstrated pretty conclusively something was quite and for me, Advent didn't feel as much like a sacred observance as it did a stressful ordeal.
Speaker A:I think sometimes I needed more prayer afterwards than before.
Speaker A:But why am I telling you this?
Speaker A:Because here's what I know as a parent, so much of parenting feels like, why am I bothering?
Speaker A:Why am I doing this?
Speaker A:Is this making any difference?
Speaker A:Why bother?
Speaker A:And I want you to understand something.
Speaker A:Impact isn't measured by immediacy.
Speaker A:Let me say that again.
Speaker A:Impact isn't measured by immediacy.
Speaker A:You see, most of the seeds that are sown into the lives of our children are.
Speaker A:They're more like planting apple trees than radishes.
Speaker A:You can take a radish seed and you can push it into the soft loam of a garden, and in less than a month, you can plop out a red salad ingredient.
Speaker A:But you plant an apple seed, and you're going to spend at least seven, maybe even more years tending to first a seedling and then a sapling and then a tree before you ever pluck the first juicy right apple.
Speaker A:And then only after the bugs or the birds haven't gotten it first.
Speaker A:There are radish moments in parenting when you get a quick return, when you see the impact of your labors.
Speaker A:But most of parenting is done in apple years.
Speaker A:You don't see the impact of what you're doing for a long time to come.
Speaker A:An Advent for us was something like that.
Speaker A:My ideas of how Advent was going to happen didn't align at all with the reality of what happened.
Speaker A:I was not looking for one more situation where I would have to correct or break up arguments or deal with kids who left the room ticked off with one another.
Speaker A:That wasn't the whole point of Advent.
Speaker A:And yeah, there were times it just felt discouraging, and I asked myself, why bother?
Speaker A:But, you know, just kept showing up.
Speaker A:Because sometimes as a parent, that's all you can do.
Speaker A:You just keep showing up, and you just keep planting and tending those apple seeds and saplings and seedlings and trees.
Speaker A:You know, a couple of years ago, I asked my sons.
Speaker A:They were all grown at that point, and I asked them what they remembered about Advent.
Speaker A:Now, I would love to tell you that their eyes became misty and they put their arms around me, or they set a hand on my shoulder and they said, oh, mom, that's one of My most treasured memories.
Speaker A:I so remember the significance of those times.
Speaker A:Yeah, that.
Speaker A:That's not what happened.
Speaker A:Candles was actually a top response.
Speaker A:And that was followed by statement such as, now I remember someone always blowing out my candle.
Speaker A:Interesting how nobody ever seemed to remember that they were the offending party, but whatever.
Speaker A:Chaotic was another adjective that was brought up.
Speaker A:And additional adjectives include things like bored.
Speaker A:One did try to offer somewhat of a balanced approach and said, well, you know, other than the emotional trauma, you knew something serious and important was going on.
Speaker A:Does that make Advent a failure?
Speaker A:No, because here's what I know.
Speaker A:Along with the chaos and the conflict and the wicked wicks of the candles, that apple seed of faith was being nurtured.
Speaker A:In spite of the accusations, the arguments and the many acts of arson, belief was being cultivated.
Speaker A:And now I am happy to say and to know that they do have the light of the greatest story ever told burning in their hearts.
Speaker A:And that is worth all the wicked wicks in the world.
Speaker A:As you get ready to go through this Christmas season and whatever the circumstances are for your family during this time, it may be very busy, maybe it's not.
Speaker A:Maybe your children are very young.
Speaker A:Maybe they're middle aged.
Speaker A:Maybe they are getting ready to launch out of the house and you're looking at being an empty nester here in the next year or two.
Speaker A:Maybe they're all spread out.
Speaker A:Maybe your Christmas this year is one filled with joy and happiness and just tremendous excitement and travels and vacations and parties.
Speaker A:And maybe your Christmas this year is filled with stress and grief and sorrow and lament.
Speaker A:Whatever the reality is, for you know this, the Christmas story is worth telling.
Speaker A:It's worth teaching your children about, not just in some simplistic way, but to share with them the meaning of the gospel for you as an individual, not just for the whole world, but for you and for their need of a savior and for the hope that they can have because he did come.
Speaker A:And don't judge the impact of what you are teaching.
Speaker A:Don't judge the impact of the traditions that you make to try to bring Christmas to life and its meaning, applicable and relevant.
Speaker A:Don't get discouraged when it doesn't go the way that you planned and all the hopes that you had.
Speaker A:Just remember, parenting is more about apple tree years than radish years.
Speaker A:Stay with it.
Speaker A:Don't give up.
Speaker A:Don't despair.
Speaker A:Keep lighting the light of truth for your kids in every way you can.
Speaker A:You do have an impact that is immeasurable, eternal and irreplaceable.
Speaker A:I'll see you next time.
Speaker B:Thank you for listening.
Speaker B:Visit the website Stephanie presents.com and sign up for High Impact to join the mission of building spiritually strong, emotionally healthy and relationally smart women and families.
Speaker B:You can also book Stephanie to speak at your event and check out additional resources.
Speaker B:Together we can invite and equip generations to engage fully in God's grand story.
