The Waiting Begins

The holidays are filled with anticipation. If you stop to think about it, we must wait for many things during this special time of year. We try forcing bulbs...paper whites come to mind. We pot up a couple of really fat amaryllis bulbs, hoping that this year the flowers will be huge. We check our Christmas cactus for those plump buds of red, pink or white. We wait until after Thanksgiving is over to put our Christmas decorations up. Sometimes we have to wait patiently for hubbies to bring the boxes up from the basement. We wait for Christmas catalogs to come in the mail. We wait for Christmas sales to do our shopping. Kids wait to open gifts placed under the tree...if they don't snoop. When it is all ready we wait patiently to finally open the beautifully wrapped gifts under the tree. We have to wait for the turkey to get done. We wait for our company to arrive and then finally the waiting is over for us. After all the waiting...it is over in a minute, it seems.

The season of Advent will soon be upon us. With expectant hush, and long awaited yearning, we herald the coming of the long awaited birth of Christ. Let's begin... our expectant waiting, for Christ is finally here. We celebrate the coming with a renewal of traditions, with remembered worship, with reverent waiting. We always had an advent calendar, when my kids were growing up. It hung on the refrigerator and when the kids were small they would open a door each day during December...right up to Christmas Eve. It's a nice tradition for kids. The start of the holiday season heralds something else too....our very busy Church mice will start the preparations at our Church. Women will gather to make a special place for our Church family to await the coming of the Messiah. We will be hanging the greens, wreaths on every door, every cloth will be pressed for the altar, wood polished and gleaming, lights on all the trees, and the Manger will be put in place..inside and out... minus the babe. We will have to wait until the Christmas Eve Mass for him.

Balisha