Advent 2011: Day Two - laundry lists

I've got a laundry list, which includes actual laundry, to knock out before the B.I.G. day.  You know, when Santa arrives and the kids innocently show on those cherubic faces whether or not Michael and I picked correctly from their laundry list of wants.  My favorite post on facebook recently was a parent that said that her daughter refused to write that laundry list because Santa knew exactly what she wanted.  Talk about a panic moment.  How could anyone do their shopping without The List, much less Santa? 

And between now and the B.I.G. day, the kids are anxiously counting down with an Advent calendar.  The only minor glitch is that Momma accidentally bought an obviously agnostic Advent calendar that starts on December 1st, not November 27th - the first Sunday of real actual Christian Advent.  Being Christian, we ate the first piece of chocolate out of said agnostic calendars yesterday and are now four days ahead of schedule.  We are currently counting down to December 21st.  Oops.

Here's the thing.  I remember being that age, when the excitement of what was to come held potential wonder and abundance and happiness.  I remember craving the frenzy of that day, of the exasperation of having to wait for the whole house to wake up and for Mom to make coffee and Dad to get through his morning constitutional and anticipating, imagining, practically combusting over what could possibly have magically appeared behind those closed doors.  The ones leading to the living room and the tree. 

And I want my own children to feel that same excitement, that same craving. I want them practically combusting as well.  So that when we read the Christmas story, about the R.E.A.L. day, they can taste what it means to wait for something momentous.  They can get what it feels like to want in earnest for that better thing.  To want with anticipation, so that when we go and we sit in the darkness. And we hold a candle. And we sing ever so softly Silent Night .... they will be primed in the deep crevices.  Attuned to the waiting.  So that just maybe, before the frenzy of that next morning, they'll get the goosebumps.  The ones that come in knowing. 

Christ, humbly and weakly and preciously, has been born into our realm. 

Just before the frenzy.  They'll know.