Adventures in Advent

Advent started this past Sunday.  I have been to three  places searching for the prerequisite purple and pink candles.   Alas, I have come up empty.   The church I attend, plus the two local parishes that serve as emergency back up in the event we can't make it to the mass at our home parish, sell ornaments and grocery certificates, items from the Holy land and donuts after mass.  There are Christmas ornaments and Christmas cards, Christmas trees and coffee, Cd's, books and sometimes hot dogs.  

There are no Advent candles.  

CVS, Giant, Safeway, the floral shops and specialty boutiques have ornaments and lights, tinsel and Christmas music, gifts, inflatable Santas and jingle bell singing fish, figgy pudding in a can for crying out loud, but no Advent candles.  

But since Advent is about lighting a candle rather than cursing the darkness, my Advent wreath this year shall still be lit.  So I bought beeswax candles.  They don't fit in the wreath.  I went back to get different candles. There has been a run on tapered candles, there are lots of stubby things and tea lights, candles in glass and candles that are supposed to light internally but not burn the outside (they never work).  Scrounging in what felt like the underbelly of the store, I managed to find four unbroken.  

It took some work for the cashier to discern their prices.  

So we will have Advent.  We will light the wreath.

It's just the candles shall be chartreuse,  2 burgundy and ocher.  I could argue, the green is evergreen, the burgundy like the blood of Christ, red, and technically in the family of purple, and ocher, well, let's just say it's gold reminding us of Christ's Kingship and the gifts of the Magi.  

"Mom. You're just justifying the colors you have."
"You bet."
"Can you do it again?"
"Give me a challenge.  Give me the colors."

She considered the spectrum of options.  "Fuchsia, yellow and brown."
"Easy.  Fuchsia for the joy (it's a pink), yellow for the star and brown for the stable."
"Not bad." my daughter mused.  "Could you justify black, blue and orange?"

"Let's see, black for the world prior to the Incarnation, blue for Mary, the Virgin Mother, and orange for orange you glad I didn't have to do this?"

She decided it was time to get back to homework, with Mom making stupid puns.

My mom is sending me some correct candles, I'm thinking of ordering next year's on the Feast of the Epiphany so as to store them with the wreath when I put it away. Otherwise, I'll have to discern the spiritual significance of gray, tan and lilac.