This Advent, we invite you to journey with seminarians Dylan and Gabriel as they help prepare our hearts for the birth of Jesus. This week, they decorate a Christmas tree and share their reflections on the meaning of Christmas and the family traditions that shape their celebration. As we enter into the spirit of this holy season, may these joyful preparations for the Nativity draw us closer to Christ. What’s your favourite way to decorate for Christmas?
Transcript
Christ is being born, we’re celebrating that. So to be able to do that as a family, as a symbol of this is what we profess, this is the beauty of the mystery of Christmas. I find something very profound in that. Hello, I’m Gabriel Guillaume. I’m Dylan Asmus. We are fifth year seminarians at Holy Spirit Seminary in Banyo. What are we doing today Dylan? We’re going to decorate a tree. For Christmas? For Christmas. For Christmas. Let’s do it! I was never actually allowed to decorate the tree because I was too little. Then when I got older, I was not good enough. Clearly looking at your style, I think there are other reasons why you didn’t decorate a tree. Christmas was a good little bit of a holiday. And my family traditions were always family based. So we’d have Christmas was either at our place or at a relative’s place. And it was always everyone came to one place for Christmas. What about you, Gabriel? Where did your family traditions sort of come from? It’s always at my Aunty’s place. She’s just so hospitable. She’s so generous. I don’t think there is an option for anyone else to host a Christmas lunch because it’s just it has to be at hers. I do think that family traditions do enhance the Christmas spirit, if you’d call it, like that sense of Christ is being born, we’re celebrating that. Just as Mary, Joseph, and Jesus were gathered together, the shepherds were there, the angels were glorifying the Lord and his birth. They all came to that spot to celebrate. So to be able to do that as a family, as a symbol of this is what we profess, this is the beauty of the mystery of Christmas. Yeah. I find something very profound in that. A little bow tie, that’s cool. Put that over there. That is not fair! I don’t have a bow tie in my box. My box is good. That’s like extra points. Dylan, take a look at this. This will win the prize. Oh, that is beautiful, oh no, I’m blocking your bow tie, look, I can’t do that, that would be against my character. You put a lot of effort into that bow tie. It looks nice and smart. There we go. Good stuff. Look, I don’t think that’s too bad. No, my side’s really good, I don’t know about your side. I’d give it, I’d give it an eight and a half out of ten. That’s pretty good. Your side is good. I like this thing. Whatever this is, this is awesome. I’m telling you. This little laurel wreath. I like it, You did a good job. You filled all the little gaps in. That’s the main part, you don’t want the gaps where you can see all the way through the tree. That’s true. But I do love the pine cone because that takes me back to being a little kid covering it in PVA glue and rolling it in glitter. And that was like peak Christmas decoration. But I feel like something’s missing from the top. Something is missing. Let’s get the star. Oh! Oh I like that. That’s gorgeous. That’s cool. Now, between the two of us, you reckon we can get this on? Okay, wait, you put it on. You’re taller than I am. Oh, yeah. That’s true. Hey, we got it! Not wonky at all! That’s the real engineering challenge. I love it. Good stuff, I reckon we did a good job. That’s solid. So, we put up our tree and we hope that your Advent preparations are going really well. We hope that whatever family traditions you’ve got to do in this Advent season that they bring you a lot of joy and happiness. That’s right. So, however you’re going to gather around. However you’re going to actually prepare yourself, just make sure you’re doing it united with the Lord. Like He wants you to do this preparation. He wants to bring you closer to the mystery of Christmas. So, use this time wisely to do things like this where it’s putting you into that that mood, that spirit. We wish you all the best for that. Happy Advent. Happy Advent.