Making Advent Special

Lighting The Way: Leuenberger-style.

I’ve never met a kid who didn’t love Christmas. From the cookies and countdown calendars to the carols, crafts, and cheer, much about this time of year feels tailored to the whims and wonders of childhood. Growing up, I was no exception to this rule, and looked forward to when my parents would break out their Goodyear Great Songs of Christmas album (we had album 5) and play it on the record player, or when my mom would make chocolate fudge so rich and sweet it would make my teeth hurt. But my favorite traditions this time of year were like nothing I’d ever heard any other child share about at school or church. They were special. And to this day, I still think they’re something special, and something worth sharing about.

Earlier this week, I asked my mom what inspired her to create these special traditions for our family, which consisted of three distinct celebrations to mark the first three weeks of Advent: Angels Night, Shepherds Night, and Kings Night. My mom told me she’d read a book called Making Sunday Special, which is described as “an insightful, encouraging, and delightful book, [that] challenges Christians to celebrate Sunday with a sabbath heart. […] Making Sunday Special will help you and your family restore ‘the rhythm of the sacred’ and fall in love anew with the day of rest and with Jesus Christ, the Lord of the Sabbath.”

As a pastor’s kid herself who ended up marrying a pastor, my mom had a deep-seated knowledge of the challenges of being raised in the church and raising your own kids in the church, too. It can’t be easy wondering how to form your children in the faith in an intentional way while also not making ritual feel rigid and tradition feel trivial. On top of that, there is a ten-year age gap between my oldest brother and me, which could’ve made many family activities feel like a challenge to include everyone in. And while I am sure my brothers felt they had outgrown some of the elements of these traditions by the time I remember most of them, they were good sports about it and never made me feel like that age gap was as wide as it sometimes really was.

So in the spirit of the season, I thought I’d share about how my mom helped Make Sunday Advent Special with these three traditions, how your family might enjoy them, and how I’m continuing to carry them on in my own life. Each night included a distinct theme and activity, an accompanying scripture reading and song, and the lighting of that week’s candle in the Advent wreath.

Angels Night

Do not be afraid!

Angels Night was the first of our Advent celebrations. On this night, my mom would bake an Angel Food cake and make a pot of delicious chocolate fondue to be served with a platter of fruits like strawberries, pineapples, and mandarin oranges as well as marshmallows. After this delicious treat, we’d go to a different room in the house (usually around our piano where we kept the Advent wreath) where someone would read passages from Matthew 1 and Luke 1, which tell the stories of when Joseph and Mary are visited by an angel and told about the coming birth of Jesus. After this, we’d sing a carol like “Angel’s We Have Heard on High,” and light the first candle of Advent, which represents hope, and usually alludes to the prophesies and promises that were a part of the first Advent—the first time we waited for Christ to come.

Shepherds Night

Shepherds Night 1994

Shepherds Night was the second of our Advent celebrations and my favorite. On this evening, we would dress up like shepherds and enjoy a special meal as a family. We would turn all the lights off in the house and eat our meal by the light of a fire or candles only—just like the shepherds did so many nights long ago—enjoying a spread of stew, dried meat and cheese, as well as special dried fruit like figs, apricots, and dates. Later, when my mom started doing shepherds night with my brother’s kids, she added a special element to after the feast, which included dancing as a group to the Shepherds’ Dance from the opera “Amahl and the Night Visitors.” I got to put on a shepherd’s feast a few years ago with some friends and their children, and this new addition was so very fun!

After our feast, we’d read the account of The Shepherds and The Angels in Luke 2, sing “While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks By Night” or “Away in a Manger” and light the second candle on the wreath—the candle of peace or “Bethlehem Candle,” which reminds us of Mary and Joseph’s journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem.

Kings Night

Kings Night was the third and final celebration our family did, and consisted of an evening of decorating paper crowns with fake gems, glitter glue, stickers, and hand calligraphy completed by my mom. When I was a little girl, Kings Night would continue with us “kings” riding on the back of our “camel” (our dad), following “the star” (a flashlight on the ceiling) to the manger. After reading the account in Matthew 2 and singing the absolute bop that is “We Three Kings of Orient Are,” we three four kings would then find out that gifts awaited us, too! Like the year we all got new, animal-themed slippers!

Advent Past, Advent Present, Advent Future

With December around the corner, I’ve started to make a few plans to share these special nights with friends in my community. I hope we will be able to gather and share a meal, be a little silly, and read the old, old stories that still haven’t lost their wonder. And in those celebrations, I know I will recall the memories of when the Leuenberger family practiced our special sort of liturgy for lighting the way. And as my mind wanders, I will travel back to my childhood Advents in the wallpapered living room of 3072 Main Street—to an age when I ate chocolate fondue with my three brothers, sat with our growing legs crisscrossed on the family floor in headdresses we found in the costume box, climbed on my dad’s back and pretended he was a camel.

And while I agree that perpetually longing for the past or drinking too much from the punch bowl of nostalgia can be unhelpful, I also think that remembering the past, and even longing for it, can serve in a spiritually beautiful and rich way, too.

Last year, I wrote some liturgies for my church, and one reflected on how the past can help us better understand the present and gain assurance that what happens in the future is for our good, too. As I put the liturgies together, I found myself incredibly moved to see the seeds of the story of Jesus planted throughout the pages of the Bible. From the moments following mankind’s first sin in the Garden of Eden, to Jesus’s final hours in the Garden of Gethsemane, to that early morning at the empty garden tomb, the stories of scripture remind us that God’s plan has been, is, and always will be about bringing life, extending forgiveness, and promising hope. “Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.”

Therefore, let us keep the [shepherd’s] feast!

Shepherds Feast 2022