The season of Advent has begun.
I love Advent. I enjoy the anticipation and gradual build up to Christmas. Christmas trees are spotted in windows, and our own goes up. Even more sparkly lights than normal adorn our walls, plants, furniture.
Lists are made along with plans.
The freezer is gradually filled with food; cakes made and iced.
Christmas shows and concerts are anticipated and enjoyed.
This is all the good stuff.
But the reality is that there is also much in this season that is hard, and the busyness and frenetic planning and spending can be exhausting and overwhelming.
For many, this has been a hard year, with challenges, loss, difficult transitions. These are all heightened at this time of year.
I know it can be all too easy to get caught up in what is negative and difficult, and to only be able to see what is not, what we can’t do or don’t have, where we are not enough. I am not in any way diminishing the difficulties or losses anyone is facing.
But as always, we have a choice in how we respond.
We get to choose our response each day to what happens to us, and this can be a great way to reset our approach to this Advent season. As I look back over this year of blogging, the main themes that stand out are reflection, slowing , being genuine, growing in emotional awareness, and gratitude.
Gratitude is a theme that underpins all of these. Gratitude helps us shift from what we are not and what we can’t, to who we are and what we can. Giving thanks away is a theme I wrote about last Advent, and you can read that here.
Having a thankful heart is the centre from which we can see our own lives in a more balanced and positive light, and seek to bring that encouragement into the lives of others.
I was reminded recently from an unlikely source of the importance of approaching the season….
..With a grateful prayer and a thankful heart.
Our family were gifted as a Christmas present a trip to see The Muppet Christmas Carol with full orchestra playing the score.
I cannot tell you HOW MUCH FUN this was!
The auditorium was full of Muppet lovers and Christmas lovers of all ages, and the sense of collective enthusiasm and enjoyment was palpable.
The story of Scrooge is one of redemption.
Scrooge turns from a mean, heartless and miserly skin flint to a humbled and grateful man committed to making up for lost time and giving, loving and encouraging others generously and kindly.
The Muppets version (which we first saw when it came out in the cinema 30 years ago) has so much fun with this classic Charles Dickens story, with all the muppetry nonesense one would expect.
But for all the singing lobsters and dancing penguins, the theme at the end is one of gratitude. Scrooge is a changed man, and commits to a new pattern of living in which
…every night will end and every day will start …with a grateful prayer and a thankful heart.”
What a lovely way to approach Advent!
Yes there is much that is difficult, challenging, hard and just plain wrong about our world.
But when we choose each day to look for what is good we can always find things to be thankful for. To quote Michael Caine as Scrooge again:
Stop and look around you.
The glory that you see
Is born again each day.Don’t let it slip away
How precious life can be
So as the days continue towards Christmas, whatever that means in your household, take encouragement from the Muppets and choose to start and end each day with a grateful prayer and a thankful heart.