Drunken Waiting
Advent starts in two days or, depending on your Semitic predilections, tomorrow evening. Advent is a season of peaceful waiting, meditation, penance . . . and drinking.
As every traditionalist Christian realizes, our culture has kicked the holiness of Advent in the teeth by creating one large holiday season from Thanksgiving to New Years, with the result that everyone is pretty much partied-out by December 26th. It'd be an interesting historical analysis to figure out when/why Advent was jettisoned for Party. It didn't used to be that way, and not just for Catholics. My father told me that his family (Lutherans) didn't decorate the Christmas tree until Christmas Eve. I remember an Episcopalian minister stating that he was so old school, he didn't like seeing any lights or decorations until the 25th.
But regardless, we are where we are. We are called upon to leaven the culture, not scorn it, so leaven it we must. I'll leaven it with drinking. Drinking, in moderate amounts, can be a kind of meditation, kind of the way a simple smile is a type of blessing (acc'd to Mother Theresa). Drinking isn't meditation, but it loosens the mind in a way that meditation does, just as a smile doesn't confer any graces but it lightens a person's heart the way grace does.
Those are my thoughts, anyway. Please forgive them if they're screwy. I wrote them yesterday, while sober, so the quality probably isn't as sharp as I'd like.
Regardless, if you're going to get into the Christmas spirit, you might want to consult this Top 10 list of bar drinks. It contains some basic information and ideas that might come in handy.
