As if you needed one more thing to do this time of year...

Well, it's BacktoSchoolHalloweenThanksgivingandsuddenlyit'sChristmas season. Every year. Without fail. Are you feeling it?

So it is with some trepidation that I offer this appeal: Don't miss Advent.

Advent, the church season which looks forward to Christmas, has fallen out of favor. It sounds stodgy, too churchy. And besides, if we celebrate four weeks of Advent, who has time for Christmas (which is the real fun anyhow)?

But the rhythm of Advent slows us down. It keeps Christmas from being a blur. Whether you observe Advent in a traditional way - with a wreath and five candles, representing the prophecies about Jesus, Bethlehem, the shepherds, the angels, and the baby Jesus - or in some other way that draws kids into the Christmas story and allows them to imagine it, experience it, play with it, and wonder about it, Advent is such a valuable tool for inviting kids into the world and language of faith.

Otherwise what happens is that we immerse ourselves in a crush of now-largely secularized traditions, while the Christmas story waits for us on December 25 - by which time, kids are so drunk with excitement about presents and school breaks, the actual Christmas story can become a coda ("...Aaaand then Jesus was born").

Sybil McBeth, who developed the "Praying in Color" concept, also wrote a handy book called The Season of the Nativity: Confessions and Practices of an Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany Extremist. Click the link to the preview page, which itself has six ideas to use on Christmas Day alone. All of Sybil's ideas are practical and inexpensive.

Here's the real beauty of Advent: it addresses the idea of waiting, which every kid is accustomed to. Kids living in an adult-run world have to wait all the time, for birthdays and holidays and grown-ups and for their turn, and it's hard to wait. So you begin at the optimal point for learning, which is relating to the personal situation of the learner. (Educational psychologists would call this the "anticipatory set".) Ask your kids, "What are some things you've had to wait for? Why is it hard to wait? What can we do to make waiting easier?"

But be sure, also, that you make the link between our waiting and the Israelites'. Advent is a looking forward to Christmas, just as the people of God (Israel) looked forward to the coming of the Messiah. Who was the Messiah? Why were they desperate for him? How did his coming amaze them/shock them? Why did most of them miss it? Jesus' life, and his rejection by most who encountered him, doesn't make sense except against this backdrop.

That's a valuable life lesson for kids (which is not to imply that Jesus' birth and life were just pretexts to teach us character lessons about handling whatever it is we wait for), that in waiting, we can become impatient, or refuse to wait, or despair. Or, we can relate to the Israelites and remember that in their darkest moment, God has already come through. Therefore, their waiting is our waiting. As Christians, we don't wait for God to do something "new" or "better" or "different" at Christmas. He's already done the biggest thing. And it made everything all right.

Young kids are probably too young to play the "What if Jesus had never been born" thought experiment, but older kids can probably entertain it. Would the world still be hopeful? And are they still hopeful now that Jesus will keep his promise to return to the world he loves? Advent immerses us in this kind of "what if?" and "what now?" thinking. Soak it up, and revel with your kids in the joy of waiting for something whose delivery is already assured.