Five Simple Steps So You Can Breathe Deeply Through Advent
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash
What do you want Advent and Christmas to feel like?
When you think of the best season you could hope for, what comes to mind?
Serenity? Peace? Spaciousness?
Advent is a beautiful season, and the anticipation of Christmas gives us a lot to look forward to.
But even the fun stuff means more to do.
In fact, our to-do lists and calendars can be more stuffed than the Christmas turkey!
There are trees to decorate; church-related parties to attend (whether we want to or not); Christmas Eve liturgies to plan; gifts to order, wrap, and mail; cards to send; thank you notes to write; and of course! cookies to bake.
And if you’re hosting guests or traveling to family or friends, well, there’s a whole other to-do list for those logistics.
Not to mention the emotional hype (expectation?!?) within and around us that clutters our minds as much as the activity.
As Christmas approaches, many stresses become more acute and frequent—like the pressure to produce high quality sermons, liturgies, and music; pastoral care needs; disagreements between church leaders; and the desires of parishioners, your family, and perhaps even yourself.
The hype and tasks can easily rob us of the season we long for!
To create a grounded yet spacious Advent and Christmas, give yourself one hour to work through these steps!
Step One: Create the environment (10 mins)
Gather these supplies:
Pens
Blank sheets of paper
Your calendar and current to-do lists
What will help you be present?
Light a candle, put on music or enjoy the silence, declutter your desk or find a cozy spot that lets you pray and relax.
Step two: stop not Breathing (5 mins)
If we want to feel like we can breathe through the seasons then there’s no getting around it: we actually have to breathe!
What will make you breathe more easily, relax your jaw, and lower your shoulders from your ears?
On the first piece of blank paper, write down one thing you can do each day to help, and another thing you can do each week.
For example, here are suggestions for a daily breath to do for ten minutes or less:
Just breathe deeply!
Tidy your space to the degree it feels good to you
Pray
Practice yoga
Walk
Listen to music
Dance
Sit with a bible passage that reminds you it will all be OK and you are loved no matter what!
Call a friend
Here are suggestions for a weekly breath of thirty-to-sixty minutes:
Walk in the woods
Write thank you notes to people who aren’t expecting it because they “didn’t do anything special”
Soak in the tub
Soak in poetry
Create something just for yourself
Play or make music
Get lost in a novel
Step three: do a Braindump (10 mins)
On the second piece of paper, do a brain dump of everything on your list, including work and personal tasks, with an estimate of how long you expect each one to take.
Refer to your calendar to remind you about what’s coming up. Get it down as quickly as possible in any order.
For instance:
Sermon prep: Three sermons x 6 hours of prep each = 18 hrs
Liturgy planning: 6 hours
Christmas shopping: 8 hours
Wrapping gifts: 2 hours
Grocery shopping: Six trips x 2 hours each (including driving and putting groceries away) = 12 hrs.
Baking Christmas cookies: 6 hours
Pastoral care visits to shut-ins and those in the hospital: 7 hours
Committee meetings: Five meetings x 90 minutes each (including prep time and casual conversation before and after) = 7.5 hrs.
Christmas parties to attend: two x 4 hours each, including getting dressed and driving = 8 hrs
Exercise: five days per week x 30 minutes each = 2.5 hrs
Attend grandchild’s school Winter Concert: 2 hours, including driving and hot chocolate afterwards
Decorate the tree and house: 10 hours
Clean the house; 3 hours
Step four: Revise the List (15 Mins)
First, circle the non-negotiables.
These are the ones that can’t not get done, can’t be rescheduled until after Christmas, or can’t be delegated.
And I mean, really can’t be rescheduled or delegated.
Do you have to see all the shut-ins before Christmas, or do you want to see them before Christmas?
Are you truly the only one in the universe who can do a particular task? Would someone else enjoy taking it on, even if you don’t believe they’ll do it to your standards?
Second, draw an arrow to any you’d love to do and will if you find time and energy. (Could you live with cookies from the bakery instead of baking them yourself?)
Third, adjust the amounts of time up or down.
If something could go awry with the task, add at least an hour.
For example, this blog has taken me twice as long to write as I thought it would! Maybe your sermons will take longer than you expect, so plan on eight hours, giving you plenty of buffer.
If you can live with a lowered standard, reduce the time.
For instance, maybe you can live with the house not being perfectly clean, so reduce cleaning to one hour.
Step Five: receive (20 Mins)
Review your list again and receive the good work and loving acts that God has entrusted to you.
Commit your daily and weekly breathing moments to your calendar. Then, add your to-do lists and when you will do them, making sure you leave plenty of buffer for the unexpected.
If you still feel like you’ve got too much to do, then recall that the season is for you as much as for anyone else, so a little tough task-editing might be in order.
Just like we have to edit our sermons when they are too long and leave our darlings on the cutting room floor, what has to come off your list so that you can still breathe?
God does not want us to miss the beauty of this season any more than God wants anyone else to miss it!
What can be left undone so that you can breathe in this season of light and anticipation?
What can be left undone so that you are ready to receive the Lord Jesus the moment he arrives on the doorstep of your heart, hoping to be invited in—and not feel annoyed like he’s an interruption!
Receive Jesus.
Receive the gift of this season.
God will take care of the rest.
Want to Take your Advent 4 & Christmas sermons off your list Early?
Join us NEXT WEEK for a sermon prep intensive
in partnership with Berkeley Divinity School at Yale!
December 8-12, 3-4 pm Eastern
Register for this 5-day intensive to craft your Advent 4 & Christmas Eve sermons. With your sermons done by Friday, 12/12, you'll be able to turn your attention to other demands and the season's joys.