Anticipation

As we enter into the Advent season, we're talking about waiting - something that our culture doesn't really teach us any more. And one of the reasons that we're so poor at waiting is because we don't know how to live with a sense of anticipation. 

Anticipation is a building excitement for what is coming. It's dwelling in the unknown and enjoying the imagination of what might be. 

We don't have to do that. 

We have trailers for movies, spoilers for TV shows, pre-release versions of songs. The ads for Black Friday, as I said yesterday, started coming out in September. Companies drop new products like they're hot, but they drop them when they're ready to launch. Heaven forbid anyone say, "Coming soon" and not mean like, in the next week. But fear not because someone with insider knowledge will publish an entire full-color, ridiculous-length spec on whatever it is long before we can get our hands on it. Product testers will "leak" (on purpose, since that's what they're paid to do) their opinions of things. 

We always know before we think we're supposed to know, but honestly, even that is part of the plan. The whole world wants to make us feel like insiders to something that's still a little far off by putting it in our hands before they told us they would and then, wow. What a world we live in. 

No building excitement. No dwelling in the unknown. No imagination required. 

No wonder we struggle for Advent. 

We are celebrating Christmas all month long. As soon as the clock strikes midnight after Thanksgiving, the radio stations all flip over to their Christmas mix. Restaurants are serving egg nog and candy cane and peppermint flavors. Sugar cookies abound. There are decorations and lights and presents. And parties. Everything you could ever want. 

I remember when I was a kid (which was longer ago than most persons think, but not all that long ago in the grand scheme of time) and Christmas was Christmas. You didn't get three or four family parties leading up to the big day; you hit everyone's house on Christmas. Sometimes, Christmas Eve. You couldn't stalk your wish list and know what you were getting; it was a surprise. There was not buildup of gifts - on day three, you get a book; on day four, you get a snack; on day five, you get pajamas. None of that. There was simply Christmas. 

You circled it on the calendar and counted down the days and that was the only day you got. Christmas was a single event. 

I don't even know what this generation does with Advent calendars - count down the days with some new little something every day to whet your appetite. 

Because we can't stand having to wait. We don't know how to embrace anticipation. We have entitled ourselves to not have to build our excitement; this generation says they are either excited or they aren't. We don't have to dwell in the unknown, and we don't have to use our imaginations. 

There is nothing more magical than the Christmas imagination of the holiday movies 30-40 years ago. The North Pole in The Santa Clause? Magical. Just look at how that north pole changed even throughout that franchise - it became more mechanical, more dull, more blah. Something lost its magic. 

Because we lost our sense of anticipation. Christmas itself became mechanized instead of wondrous. 

Advent is a time when we become intentional about getting that wonder back. And wonder...begins in anticipation.