Lucy Maud Montgomery wrote of the delights of anticipation when her beloved heroine in Anne of Green Gables exclaimed that “looking forward to things is half the pleasure of them.”
This year especially, everyone needs something to look forward to — a little Christmas, some tidings of comfort and joy. Advent traditions turn attention away from the world and toward the Christ of Christmas. Time-honored rituals keep hands and minds busy and create a sense of anticipation that culminates in the lighting of candles on Christmas Eve and the opening of gifts on Christmas Day.
The hustle and bustle of Christmas holidays instill a collective sense of hope. The South Carolina state motto, Dum Spiro Spero, means, “While I breathe, I hope.” Hope, in the Judeo-Christian sense of the word, means more than wishing for something, as a child might do with his Christmas list for Santa. It means faith — expecting a promise to be fulfilled.
One holiday tradition, that of forcing amaryllis bulbs, offers a visual lesson in hope, a reminder in an age of fast internet and two-hour grocery delivery that everything is beautiful in its time. The bulb itself is rather plain, but with water and sunlight, it ultimately provides magnificent trumpet-shaped flowers. In choosing bulbs, look for triangular green flower buds to ensure your plant will bloom. As the plant grows, it sends up green stalks. The flower buds appear at the end of the stalks and open into the beautiful blossoms for which the plant is well known. The most popular colors are ‘Red Lion’ and ‘Apple Blossom’, but many more varieties are available. Clemson University Cooperative Extension Service recommends planting bulbs in ceramic pots, rather than the plastic pots that come with kits, to balance the weight of the blooms, and choosing a bulb with a visible flower bud. Paperwhite narcissus bulbs are a lovely accompaniment to amaryllis, as is Christmas cactus, with its orchid-like blooms of pink or white or red, or cyclamen with its bright blooms against variegated foliage.
Another colorful mainstay of holiday decorating is the elegant poinsettia, which actually boasts a strong tie to South Carolina. The most popular flowering plant sold in the United States, this festive plant was brought to the Bartram Botanical Garden in Philadelphia in 1828 by South Carolinian Joel R. Poinsett (1779-1851). Subsequently, Philadelphia gardener Robert Buist named it after him. In the past century, the wild Mexican plant, whose true flowers are the tiny yellow blooms in the center of its colorful bracts, has been bred in order to grow many cultivars. While most of the poinsettias sold are the ‘Prestige Red’ variety, greenhouses offer cultivars with white, rose, burgundy, yellow, marbled, and speckled bracts, plus a variety of modified leaves. Healthy poinsettias have strong stems and yellow flowers that are not fully open, and they thrive in indirect sunlight and soil that is moist but not soggy.
Evergreen, ubiquitous in Christmas trees, wreaths, and garlands, symbolizes eternal life. Opinions differ on when to put up a tree and when to take it down. Some think it best to take the Christmas tree down before New Year’s Day; others wait until Epiphany, or the 12th day of Christmas, which marks the day the three wise men brought gifts to the baby Jesus.
Cutting a cedar tree from the woods or a tree farm is always fun, though some people prefer the look and smell of a Fraser fir from the Blue Ridge Mountains, even if it means vacuuming up needles for weeks. Faux botanicals can be a pretty, worthwhile investment. Mixing faux and real botanicals in holiday decor is a practical compromise; for example, faux garland on a mantel or stair rail with real poinsettias on the floor below or glossy, green magnolia branches nearby make a lovely statement. Magnolia does well with little or no water, but its color fades as foliage dries.
The circular shape of a wreath symbolizes that God is timeless, with neither beginning nor end. A single wreath can be placed on a front door, or many wreaths can adorn windows or even mirrors. Advent wreaths lay flat on a table and hold one candle for each Sunday in Advent, which began this year on Nov. 29. This tradition began in the 16th century among German Lutherans but is now a common practice in many Christian churches and homes. The smaller candles around the circle represent hope, peace, joy, and love — a larger white candle in the center represents Christ and is commonly lit on Christmas Eve.
A few traditional Southern botanicals, like nandina, smilax, and mistletoe, rise from their usual lowly status to a place of honor during Advent. Nandina’s red berries add a pop of color to a flower arrangement. Smilax, a hard-to-kill invasive tuber with pretty green, leafy vines, can be hung over doorways or draped across mantels or twined around candlesticks.
Enterprising young people, looking to sell mistletoe, know how to get the parasitic plant out of the tops of trees, although the old, traditional method involving a shotgun is prohibited in the city limits. Hung during Saturnalia, the pagan Roman festival from which many Christmas traditions have evolved, mistletoe is also associated with Frigga, the Viking goddess of love; hence, the tradition of kissing under the mistletoe, which began in the 18th century.
Many Southern children find oranges and nuts in their stockings on Christmas morning. During the Great Depression, such luxuries were well received. In South Carolina, pecans are harvested in the fall and are therefore plentiful during the Advent season, and they make delicious pies and thoughtful gifts, whether raw or sweet or savory. Even now that modern transportation and refrigeration have made citrus fruit less exotic, it is still a favorite ingredient in many Christmas delicacies, like ambrosia, a fruit salad made with oranges and usually served with fresh whipped cream. Oranges can be part of elegant arched doorway displays with apples and other fruits or studded with whole cloves to provide holiday fragrance inside the home.
Giving gifts to neighbors is an Advent tradition that does not have to be expensive. A plate of freshly baked cookies, a jar of jam from the farmer’s market, a festive dish filled with candy, or any simple pleasure shared can be a sweet gift among neighbors. Many neighbors decorate their yards in a show of unity. Examples range from the large-scale inflatable display on Portobello Road to the subtler white lit Christmas trees lining the streets of Kilbourne Park or the colorfully lit steel Palmetto trees of Hollywood-Rose Hill.
Lights and Christmas trees are essential to Advent, although the tradition started as recently as the Victorian era, when Prince Albert brought the German tradition of the Tannenbaum, or Christmas tree, to Great Britain in 1841. Lights hearken to Christ’s words, recorded in John 8:12, “I am the light of the world,” and also to the Star of Bethlehem. In his book Hidden Christmas, Timothy Keller writes, “One of the first indications of the Christmas season is the appearance of lights. Lights on trees, candles in windows, radiance everywhere … Everything seems to be wrapped in millions and millions of stars.” Christmas takes place on the shortest, darkest days of the year, and lights bring warmth and joy to holiday evenings.
Originally, candles were placed on the Christmas tree. After Thomas Edison patented the electric light bulb in 1880, his associate, Edward Hibberd Johnson, came up with the idea of lighting Christmas trees with electric bulbs, despite electricity not being widely available. By 1894, President Grover Cleveland had electric lights put on the White House Christmas tree, and by the 1930s, strings of lights were commonplace.
Christmas cards also came out of the Victorian era, when mailing a letter in England cost a penny and not answering one’s mail was considered impolite. Sir Henry Cole, who founded London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, had the idea in 1843 to answer his friends’ letters with a printed card wishing them Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. The first American Christmas card was created by Louis Prang in Boston in 1875, and in 1915, the Hall Brothers in Kansas City started what would become Hallmark Cards, Inc. Both events led to today’s tradition of family photo sessions made for the express purpose of Christmas card designs.
No Christmas celebration is complete without a few good stories, true and imagined. Linus from Charles Schulz’s animated special A Charlie Brown Christmas reads the greatest true story of all, straight from the book of Luke. He concludes, “That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown,” and the Peanuts Gang belts out, “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.” On the opposite end of the spectrum, the animated version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas ends with this kernel of wisdom, “Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more!”
Beloved children’s stories like Clement Clarke Moore’s poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” also known as “The Night Before Christmas,” as well as Chris Van Allsburg’s Caldecott medal-winning book, The Polar Express, are fun Christmas Eve reads. While both the 1823 poem and the 1985 picture book are about believing in Santa Claus, these stories illustrate what it is like to believe unconditionally in something yet unseen.
Families flock to local performances of Tchaikovsky’s beloved ballet The Nutcracker and Handel’s oratorio The Messiah, which was originally meant for Easter but is now known at Christmas for its Hallelujah Chorus. For many, this music is the highlight of the holiday season, but there is also a place for the plethora of pop music that accompanies the most wonderful time of the year.
This Advent season, hustle and bustle might be replaced with quiet reflection. Worldly trappings of the holiday could give way to simpler traditions from the past. Comfort and joy can come from the most modest of things, like the flame of a single candle or the familiar tune of a much-loved Christmas carol. Breathing in the fragrance of Christmas can give everyone hope for what is to come.