Well, we’ve made it folks!  Our Lord has allowed us to reach the end of the old and the start of the new, Church year.  Advent is the start of a whole new journey into the mysterious and marvelous seasons and days we celebrate as Catholics.  Seasons that encourage us to pray and play.

Advent is a beautiful season to be sure.  It helps us start the new Church year off on the right foot and is a constant reminder that there’s more to be experienced in the weeks before Christmas than shopping. This year the Advent season is on the short side with only 22 days. Still, it is a special time in which we can pray, go to confession and count down, the weeks and the days leading up to Christmas.  Fans of the Advent Wreath will contemplate hope, peace, joy, and love as they move from week to week.  Those who appreciate the Jesse Tree will traverse the generations of Jesus’ family tree.  Then comes Christmas Day, or as the Church formally calls it, the Solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord!  The little song,   Happy Birthday Jesus, released in 1995 by the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir, always puts me in a good Christmas mood.

While many of our neighbors may be up on ladders taking down Christmas lights on December 26, the party is just getting started for us! The Christmas season actually begins on Christmas Day and officially ends with the Feast of the Epiphany of the Lord on January 7.  Many families extend their celebrations well beyond that. In Mexico, for instance, the Christmas season ends with the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord on February 2 otherwise known as la Candelaria or Candlemas.  This is the traditional time to “present” the statue of the infant Jesus that was in the Nativity, to the Church to be blessed.  So if you are Mexican, or just like Mexican food, you too are invited to leave your Christmas lights, tree, and Nativity up until February 2!  Go ahead, it’ll be fun.

While Advent is a time of prayer and reconciliation, the Christmas season is a time for celebration, joy, and of course play!  Christmas reminds me that Jesus had a childhood, and must have played with toys of his time.  I can imagine St. Joseph making Jesus things to play with in his carpenter’s shop.  I can also imagine Mary, playing a game of hide and seek behind recently washed clothes, hung on a line to dry, and Jesus playing with the other children in his neighborhood in Nazareth.  Play is sacred.

I have fond childhood memories of Christmases.  There were always one or two new toys to play with on Christmas morning.  As a wife and mother, the Christmas season has always been a special time too.  My husband and I loved the hunt to find those special toys our children asked Santa for. Then came the wrestling match with the packaging the dolls and toys came in, followed by lots and lots of play.

Things really changed when the kids got older and video games and game apps on smart phones and tablets took over. Play has changed. Still, we should never let play, real play in which there is human interaction, go out of style.  Children need it, and so do their parents.
 
In 2007, author and psychologist David Elkind wrote The Power of Play. In it he explored the importance of spontaneous unstructured play for children’s health and human development.
 
“The health consequences for children resulting from the disappearance of play are already apparent,” he wrote.  “At a Surgeon General’s Conference on Children’s Mental Health in 2000, it was reported that ‘growing numbers of children are suffering needlessly because their emotional, behavioral, and developmental needs are not being met.’ ” Children’s mental and physical health is being hurt by our societal shift away from play.

So this Advent and Christmas seasons let’s pray and play! Make gifting choices that encourage time away from screens and more time for playing games together as families.  Let the seasons to pray and play commence!