Cold Advent, Warm Christmas

Unpacking, London festivity, and an advent poem

Dear Friends, happy Saturday! How are you? The dust is beginning to settle here in London— literally and figuratively. Almost all the boxes are unpacked. But don’t be deceived, by that I mean that the contents of the boxes are no longer in their boxes, but they have not necessarily found their homes in my home yet. Piles of Stuff beckon me around every corner, and I feel variously agitated by them depending on my mood. However, progress has been made! Our room is, if undecorated, unpacked. I can find my clothes, my toiletries, my medicine.

And our biggest project of the week? Books on bookshelves! Numbers wise, I think there were as many book boxes as all other boxes combined… and if I’m honest, probably more. While a bit overwhelming, it was true delight to be reunited with books, some of which I hadn’t seen since I had to put them in storage after an infestation of rats in old flat in 2022. One of the more amusing parts was realizing how many duplicates I/we had. The book which won the award for most duplicates was Elegance of the Hedgehog, which I had four copies of, closely followed by Augustine’s Confessions (X3) and Susannah Clarke’s Piranesi (X3). I have tried to winnow a few books (I get a lot of review copies as the books and culture editor at Plough, many of which I don’t care to keep). But in the end, it looks like we will need at least one more bookshelf. Still, seeing the shelves full of books I’d missed dearly was a very happy thing. And books, I think, are an easy decoration— they provide decoration even when you’ve done little else.

Books, food, and clothes… what more does a person need, really? Well, as it happens: Christmas decorations. Our neighborhood has, over the two weeks since we’ve been here, become ever more cheerful and Christmasy. It started with candles in the window of one flat, before giant bells hanging from the window of another, to sparkling lights appearing both inside and out. While walking home from work the other day, I passed a young mother and a little girl wandering around looking for lights. And so, we felt as new neighbors we need to join in the cheer, so we have some sparkling lights we will string up in the windows, and some red berries I had packed away for many years. It is a little bit of cheer, but I’m glad to be joining in with the city in coming to light for Christmas.

Overall, this season has been so busy, I have had very little bandwidth to prepare for Christmas, or to dig too deeply into advent. I’ve found myself leaning on resources like the Biola Advent Project and the Visual Commentary on Scripture’s Advent Series for little bits of nourishment along the way, especially as we haven’t settled at a church. But an unexpected little joy of mine has been landing in London in time for Christmas to take over London’s grey streets. Pubs are strung with greenery and red ribbon, grand trees stand watch in front of St Paul’s and All Souls. I will even confess a fondness for the Chanel lights on Bond Street— lights hung up on the high end fashion streets, in the shape of Chanel perfume bottles. Even as I have not had the personal time to lean into this season too much, the city itself has beckoned me into a cheerful spirit. And for that, I’m thankful.

Not having a picture of the Chanel lights, I borrowed this one from here.

On that note, I thought I’d share one of my favorite advent poems with you all. It is not an advent poem, per se. But it’s one I return to every year. I learned it from Malcolm Guite’s advent collection Waiting on the Word (which I recommend). Though I’ve read Malcolm’s book several times, it is this poem I always remember.