Holiday "Wants" and Holiday "Needs"

Note:  Our blog for November is written by Marcy Corneil,  a member of our Leadership Team.  Marcy first presented these ideas as devotions at the beginning of our meeting.  Her reflections have been slightly revised below ...


We have several significant secular and religious holidays that begin in November and continue into December:

• Veterans’ Day: We recognize those who gave up their own safety to secure it for others.
• Thanksgiving Day: We gather to give thanks for the blessings we have received.
• Advent: We prepare for God’s gift to us … HOW?
• Christmas Day: ?????

We give honor, recognition, and thanks on the first two days, but how do we celebrate the last two periods?

How have we strayed this far from the stable? How have Advent and Christmas become a time of parties, decorations, and presents? How has it become a season when we pack so much in that we create unreasonable expectations of perfection? When magazines give us timetables and gift suggestions and stress relievers for something that is supposed to be sacred, I think we are out of alignment.

This reminds me of a request a friend made of me years ago, when his wife went back to work. He knew that I worked, and – from the outside – it looked as if I “had it all together.” He asked me to give her some tips on being a working wife and mother.

She was a good friend, and I wanted to retain that relationship. No way would I give her unasked for advice! But I did want to help. I recognized the situation she was in: trying to do everything she had done before going to work, then adding work time on top of that. As Tom would say, “Putting 10 pounds of sugar in a five pound bag.” So I asked her what she was going to give up, now that she was working outside the home.

Some Christians give up things for Lent, as they prepare for Easter.

I think it might also apply to Advent. And I may start by finding something that I don’t need to do, that has no relation to preparing to receive God as a person among us – and giving it up. Or I may try to fast for a day each week during Advent. I KNOW I will purchase fewer (no?) frivolous gifts that people have no need for.

If you read my daughter’s blog on her children, she has an amusing anecdote about 2 year old Henry and his whining as he adjusts to sharing the spotlight with a new sibling. IWANTMILKIWANTMILKIWANTMILK repeated endlessly prompted an ultimatum from his father: “If I hear IWANTMILK once more, I will leave the room.” After a pause, Henry replied, ‘INEEDMILKINEEDMILKINEEDMILK.’

At Christmas, God gave us what we NEEDED, not what we WANTED.

For Advent,


• I will give for needs, not wants.

• I will do what NEEDS to be done, not what others WANT me to do.

• And I will give up something – probably fast for a day each week -- to remind myself of those who have much less. (I picked this up from the Muslims we met at Al-Fatemah Islamic Center during Ramadan.)

Marcy Corneil