It’s the beginning of Advent, a season of reflection and silence and preparation and hope. But the message we encounter all around us—at the mall, on TV, the Web, and radio, will be buy buy buy. And we will think of what gifts we need to get for friends and family—and what we hope to get for ourselves. We will see commercials with happy families feasting over bountiful tables and elegant women opening tiny jewelry boxes by the fireplace. It might make us feel that we are missing out, that this is the Christmas we should have.
It is fiction.
This is excerpted from “The seduction of things,” a post written by Kate Elliott that appeared on the Women of the ELCA blog earlier this week.