The Zero of Advent

What's that?  Christmas decorations are up and people are adding seasonally charged holiday memes to their profile pics on social media?

Ah, it must be the zero of Advent.  You know, it's not the FIRST of ADVENT, when traditionally we actually start celebrating this ADVENTure - it's some time before (and if you're a department store or supermarket chain, apparently it can be just after or even just before, Hallowe'en!!!).

Most folks are aware (it is known) that the advents (there are four) are the previous Sundays prior to December 25th - in whichever month they may fall - sometimes the first of advent is the last Sunday in November!  This year, the first of advent will be on my birthday.  (this does not make me special or one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse by the way, in case you were wondering....).

Advent, comes from the Latin adventus - which loosely translated means "arrival (of a king)".  It's a translation of the Greek "parousia" and has become associated with the Christian belief that Jesus will return (supposedly shortly after those aforementioned four horsemen) and reign supreme on this planet and kick out all the competition and the Christians will rejoice because they always believed they were right all along and that all the other religions were wrong ('cept for Buddha, I suppose, who never was a deity but (in some of the stories) became a deity, so he'll probably come back at around the same time and he and Jesus will have to fight it out to prove who really rules the roost).

But enough of this silliness.  My version of Christmas has nothing to do with Christianity (anymore) and we don't even have four candles (we have one big one, and we'll light it whenever we feel like it, thank you very much).  It's a truly agnostic festival for us in the Fabulous Gay Apartment.  And because I don't know if there really is any great deity worth celebrating at this time of year, I can include whatever I feel like and whatever feels right.  For me, that means celebrating the  onset of deepest darkest winter.

So my second cousin, Ben,  has arrived in Blighty with friends (and now girlfriend) in tow, and for the first time I've actually been treated as a family member who must organise and prepare festivities.  Because the whole world closes from about the 24th December onwards - if you're not with family, well, you're not doing much until the world reawakens sometime after Boxing Day.

Ashton's (Ben's friend) got a Drone!

I've decided that we need to have a traditional English Christmas - but without Midnight Mass at the local CoE, so what on earth does that mean?

Luckily there is so much left within the traditions of Christmas that is not Christian, or that has been borrowed from a time before Christianity.  The whole Winter Solstice occurring on December 21, for example, surprising close to this birthday of Jesus that we end up celebrating, is a tad suspicious to me.

Celebrating the onset of winter makes great sense when you live in the Northern Hemisphere.  It really gets cold here, and the further North you go (where all our great pagan traditions stem from) the colder it is and the value of having a big celebratory feast prior to everyone holing themselves up for the next few months until the snow has melted is immense.  There was no guarantee that you would see these people alive again as not everyone survived a Winter back in the day.  So meeting up just before the real cold sets in, meeting up and drinking and being merry and exchanging love and gifts was not only eminently sensible but also very necessary. Celebrate the inevitability of the seasons.  Save up your firewood and create a warm space.  Then everyone goes home and if you survive until Imbolc in early February, well jolly good too.

Funnily enough, our home is already strewn with festive-like decorations - David strung up our chillies a few months ago, they hang from the curtain rails in our Fabulously Festive Gay Lounge.  They do suit the seasonality about to descend on us all as soon as tomorrow arrives!