I'm not preaching this upcoming Sunday. We have some wonderful readings awaiting us though. Isaiah gives us the wonderful message of "comfort, O comfort my people." We also get our yearly Advent introduction to John the Baptist who proclaims the coming of the Lord.
In my sermon last Sunday, I mentioned that December is a month of tradition, not innovation. Now don't get me wrong, I love traditions (how could I be an Anglican if I didn't?) and have many in my family. But the danger in tradition in that we stop examining why we do what we do, or even what we're doing and we just start going on auto-pilot. As long as we focus and are intentional about them, traditions are wonderful ways to celebrate Advent and prepare for Christmas. Traditions point to a meaning beyond us, unite us to the past, and give us something to look forward to in the future.
In this post, I invite you all to share some of your favorite holiday traditions (and feel free to reflect on them, either on this blog or to yourself).
One of mine, which I no longer get to do since I've been ordained, is Christmas Eve dinner. In my family my father's mother makes homemade lasagna (they are Italian). We would eat and then attend the "Midnight Mass" afterwards. Now I do dinner between services, perhaps I'll pre-make a small lasagna dish and have Tyler put it in the oven to eat it between services. What are those traditions that you do which make the holidays the holidays?
