The three reindeer seen in the image atop today's blog entry are enjoying a good laugh about the antics of yours truly (as well as the antics of my visiting candy corn fraternal twins). For as you may recall, dear reader, in my last post here on Blogger (which was this past Wednesday, November the twenty-seventh), I was in full agreement with the candy corn twins' "not-so-fast-advice" when it came to the preparation for the Christmas holidays; and rightly so, for at that time, it was the eve of Thanksgiving and the corn twins had every right to tell the Peppermint People to hide their faces until at least December (which they ultimately did as seen in the image below which was featured in an entry on hometalk).
But now it has been a week since Thanksgiving and the Christmas season is in full swing in New York City. The famous annual ritual of the lighting of the Rockefeller Christmas Tree took place last night, less than one week after the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade; another annual event, one which I covered here on Blogger in 2012 (in posts that you may refer to by clicking here as well as here) because it was the first time I had ever seen the entire parade.
This year I only saw part of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, and if you'd like to read about it, I have info with a number photo-ops of the participating "character" balloons in posts on hometalk which you may refer to by clicking here as well as here. Meanwhile, I have never seen the lighting of the Rockefeller Christmas Tree.
I truly don't like to participate in Christmas themed activities before its actual date; rather, I prefer to observe advent: a season of preparing one's heart for the coming of Chrismas.
The physical (material) way in which I do this is to have an advent wreath which I don't hang, rather, I place one over a round tray where I have put advent candles. This can be seen in the images below.
The first image is of an advent wreath that I had in 2011, and at that time, as I had done in prior years, I added Christmas lights to the wreath to make it more festive.
However after a few years of doing this, I realized that my having added lights to wreaths took away from the simplistic (as in powerful) meaning of advent; and last year my advent wreath stood on its own with no lights. I have done the same thing this year and it can be seen in the picture directly above.
Both in 2012 and this year in the case of the aforementioned light-less wreathes, they were made by Stéphanie (who comes to NYC annually from Canada to sell Christmas trees).
Stéphanie as well as her business partners (Sebastien and Alex) often have to chop off part of the trees that they sell; and instead of discarding branches from the trees or stubs from their trees' trunks, they give them another purpose.
In fact, Stéphanie made my advent wreaths by using left over branches and boughs taken from the trees she sold, while her partners used the branches to provide antlers,
as well as tails,
for the holiday reindeer figurines that they make.
A few of these reindeer are the ones that I referred to at the onset of this post, where I pointed out that they are having a good laugh re the antics of yours truly (as well as the antics of my visiting candy corn fraternal twins).
Specifically the reindeer are laughing at our attempts to adhere to our "not-so-fast" approach to the Christmas holidays, for preparation involves more than preparing one's heart. It involves action too so that one is ready to rise to an occasion. This is a life style that certain reindeer know very well; take Rudolph, pictured below,
his bright nose allowed him to be chosen (out of all of his comrades)
The little reindeer figurines created by Stéphanie's "brood" (one of them whittles the faces, one of them assembles the animals, one of them adds the branch-antlers and branch-tails) can provide decor, as well as a reminder to be ready to serve others; and that is my advent mediation for today.
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