And that is why we never had our tree up on December 4th. Or December 10th or 17th. First came Advent. And my father, a Lutheran minister, wouldn’t let us forget that. We’d bring out the Advent log of birch—ancient Druidic tree of renewal—with three purple and one pink candle, and would do Advent devotionals at dinner each night where we rarely ate meals except for special holiday occasions. With each passing week an additional candle would be lit—the pink one was for week three, for Mary—and they’d look like wax steps, week one the shortest, week four barely burnt.
The Church liturgical colors during Advent were once purple, but changed to blue as purple was also used for Lent. Liturgical seasons rhyme that way: blue for the waiting season of Advent, purple for the waiting season of Lent. The Star of Bethlehem on South Mountain also echoed the seasons for me: during Advent and Christmas the Star looked like a star, the star that led the wise men to the Christ child. During Lent, just the cross-piece was illumined so that the star became a cross. With the star kept lit year-round, now, all local sense of the religious, liturgical calendar has been swept out of the public eye, the star now representing the secular identity the city has adopted as “Christmas City, U.S.A.,” represented by the sale of miniature glass-and-leaded Moravian Stars, a version of the Star of Bethlehem, also known as the Herrnhut Star or the Advent Star.
I have two Moravian Stars: a blue one that hangs year-round by a window in my living room. And recently returned to me, a clear one I gifted to my friend Stephanie more than 10 years ago. Stephanie passed away after a long battle with cancer, and her partner, David, returned the star to me so I would have it to remember her by.
