my peculiar advent practice

hint: it involves Star Wars

This year, I find myself observing the most peculiar of Advent practices: Each day I write a 300 or so word essay on a handful of Star Wars LEGO pieces.

You know—typical Advent stuff. The purple candles. The live Nativity. The holiday gonk droid.

Did I intend to observe the days leading up to the birth of Christ with tiny plastic lightsabers? Sorta.

I made no secret about wanting the 2023 Star Wars LEGO Advent Calendar for my birthday. And with that in hand in late October, I proceeded to pitch the idea of a daily Advent blog to my editors at DorkSideoftheForce.com. Why not, right? I was going to be building mini-LEGO sets each day of December anyway. Might as well share the holiday cheer.

You might be thinking: “Hey Eric—that’s, like, the opposite of Advent. A 100% secular, capitalistic, weird thing. No way it’s helping you make room in your life for Christ.”

Listen: Lest you’re getting worried, I’m not just building Star Wars LEGO for Advent. I’ve got a stack of spiritual reading I’m doing, too. And prayer. I’m also praying.

But here’s the thing: Those little, colorful plastic pieces? God is to be found in them, too. God is in all things, after all—if we take time to look. And here’s what I’ve found: God is in the unfolding story, the creative work of allowing our imaginations to overflow.

Because in truth, it’s not that easy to write 300 words about a handful of LEGO pieces. Like, what do you write? “This one is yellow. This one looks like a person. This one keeps falling apart.” No—that’s not going to cut it. I write about what I see, of course. But then I write about what what I see signifies. What it means. Where it fits in to the larger story.

I actually do a considerable amount of research.

Take this year’s clone trooper minifigure. I wrote about how it’s visually different from last year’s. Then I wrote about what the differences mean in the Star Wars universe. That meant I had to find last year’s pieces and scroll through the internet reminding myself why these things mattered in Star Wars storytelling.

Which necessarily brought me back in time: To when I saw the first clone trooper on the big screen as an elementary school student; to the video games I played with friends; the spirited debates I had with my peers about how clone troopers fit into the saga; to the stories I share even now with my own daughters about Star Wars.

It’s not just about a little plastic piece. It’s about what it represents—for me, for others. And I do that every day: With my girls, we open the calendar, we look at the pieces, we try to figure out what they are and how the click together and then I allow my imagination and memory to spill out and over these pieces of LEGO and into larger stories, my own stories, our shared stories, stories that have not yet been told.

And isn’t there something in that for our Advent journey? Isn’t that what we are called to do when we light a purple candle or place a donkey in the Nativity scene or pick a tag off the big tree in the back of the church with the holiday wish of a stranger printed on it?

We hold in our hands simple, ordinary items that mean very little by themselves. But once they’re placed within the story, once we allow these mundane items to animate our memories and our imagination, to carry us back and to guide us forward, something happens: We bless the everyday, ordinary, commonplace nature of our lives and discover God’s grace.

There is always more here, in these quiet, simple moments, than we realize. A larger story unfolds. Because God burst into our own story in a new and significant way in a barn, in a pile of hay, surrounded by a petting zoo worth of animals. And that moment necessarily bubbled over with grace, so much so that now we look at hay in the manger differently; we look at donkeys and sheep and camels with new eyes; we remember that the Spirit works in dingy mangers as much as in ornate churches.

So, perhaps, taking time each day to allow my imagination and memory to wander, guided by silly, simple pieces of plastic isn’t such a bad idea. Perhaps God’s grace works even through a handful Star Wars LEGO pieces.

Want to read some of my Star Wars LEGO Advent Calendar essays? Check them out here.

Looking for a great Christmas gift? Look no further (than below).