Fancy a shot of artisanal vodka for breakfast? How about a new seasonal lip-gloss to shake up your look every day this December? Or perhaps you’d prefer a daily cube of advent cheese, because nothing says “Christmas is coming” like the whiff of camembert.
Advent calendars have reached such a peak of obscene, decadent over-indulgence that, for the first time, I give credence to those who call our era that of “late” capitalism. Around the country, people will be waking up on December 1st and celebrating the beginning of advent with micro-gifts as varied as craft beer, lego figures, room fragrance kits, and sex toys.
What an age we live in. Our culture has subverted and corrupted a festival – Advent – about patient waiting and anticipation. It’s turned it into one that involves indulging ourselves into a coma of mindless consumption the moment we lift our heads from the pillow.
I’m not religious. I no more believe in the story of Jesus’ birth in a stable than I believe the plotline of last year’s Netflix seasonal hit, A Christmas Prince. But Advent, like so many religious traditions, is onto something. It has endured through centuries because it is connected to something important in the human condition. And I don’t mean our innate desire to own 24 emoji stress toys.
Advent – like Ramadan, Lent, and other religious festivals that involve waiting and endurance – trains us to suck the marrow out of experiences. Advent stretches a single moment of joy (in this case, the knowledge of a saviour’s birth) into almost a full month of anticipation and wonder.
Attentional theories of happiness confirm this is precisely the best way to boost wellbeing. In short, the science says a key component of how happy you feel is how much of your day you spend thinking about the stuff that makes you happy, rather than about the stresses and inconveniences that dog you. Depression robs us of joy in part because it makes it so hard to make joy last, as your brain sucks you into a cycle of dwelling on the negatives.
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