Strangled by the Advent Wreath

My family has many Christmas traditions, but one is not a happy one: the annual Advent Wreath Misery. My guess is that my husband, if he is reading this, has slammed his computer shut upon seeing the words "Advent wreath." That is how ugly of a tradition this is.

I am not laid back about my Advent wreath. I don't know why. Growing up, my family had an Advent wreath that my mother made. It looked very nice and I remember it fondly. Since returning to church about 8 years ago, I reinstituted the tradition. However, I am never satisfied with my Advent wreath. I have spent countless hours tinkering (and ruining) Advent wreaths. One year, I decided to do a modern version with chunks of purple and pink glass surrounding the candles. You have never beheld anything uglier than that creation. I remember chucking it in the trash, as Eric huffed to the basement to find the old, tired Advent wreath we had used for years, the one that simply was not good enough, the one that he told me we should use in the first place.

I cannot tell you how much money I have spent trying to make the perfect Advent wreath, but it is too much.  I flirted with buying a very expensive one from Trappist monks in North Carolina made of a tree trunk (yes, that is how out of hand this obsession has gotten).

But this year, at Nativity, Advent is about a conspiracy-worship fully, spend less, give more, and love all. It seemed anti-Advent Conspiracy to spend a lot of money and time I didn't have fretting over a less than perfect Advent wreath that really only meant something to me (for the record, I have logged a total of zero complaints from family members regarding the appearance or functionality of any previous Advent wreath).

So I didn't repeat old habits. I went to a store I knew would have Advent candles, and bought the candles, a candle ring and a wreath to go around it. It was not expensive, it's reusable and it was easy.

The crazy thing is that it looks better than any Advent wreath I've ever had, and better than the monk-made tree trunk wreath. This is just another example of God's sense of humor. Let go of perfection, and you come pretty close to finding it.

And if you don't like my Advent wreath, please don't tell me. I'm in a good place right now . . .