Fixing the Preludes to Advent

The Lutheran Zephyr has some ideas on how to make the beginning of Advent important and stick out from the secular holidays of Thanksgiving and Commercial Christmas, a nice application of some of the points Evan made yesterday in his post on The American Church’s Collapse Into Idolatry:

Beef up Advent. 
I like the old practice (in Anglican/Episcopalian circles, I believe)
of a six-week Advent season.  This would avoid the awkwardness of
kicking off Advent over Thanksgiving weekend, and grant more time to
this wonderful season.

End the church year intentionally. 
Perhaps a six-week Advent season could be preceded by Christ the King
(a 20th century liturgical innovation), and All Saints before that
(check out Christopher’s blogpost about the timing of Advent). 
That is, All Saints could essentially lead us directly into the end of
the church year (thematically it could work nicely) and then Advent. 
Christopher suggests perhaps a mini-season of All Saints.  I’m not sure
what I think about that, but I do like using All Saints as a shift, a
liturgical marker pointing the Church toward the year end and Advent.

Teach more. 
These seasons and themes are important, and the ways we celebrate them
in worship is critical to our proclamation of the Gospel.  However, we
can also do well to teach these themes and support their integration
into the lives of our members through intentional education programs
and devotional materials (daily lectionary readings, pericope groups,
email prayer and devotional readings, etc.).

I think all these ideas are good.  If it was up to me I would focus much more on the de-emphasis of secular holidays than the re-emphasis of liturgical holidays on the calendar.  The church is sending a message to Christians that secular holidays take precident over Church holidays (how many churches celebrate Mother’s Day more than Pentecost?)  Christians should be reminded that while Thanksgiving is an important family holiday we celebrate Thanksgiving every week in the Eucharist.  And gift giving should be a tad more reminiscent of Boxing Day in Canada, a holiday of giving to the poor, and not giving to ourselves as much?  Just some possibilities.