This year I'm trying to avoid a wimpy Advent--recognizing that, more than "dear Lord sweet baby Jesus" we look for our King of Kings.  Here's a good quote that gets at what it means to start off our new church year looking towards the coming of God in glory.

“The beginning of the liturgical year takes our thinking to the very end of things. For ‘end’ means not only the ‘end of time,’ but the central purpose or goal of creation. We are not aimlessly wandering in a wilderness, even though we may be tempted to think so. Rather, history is headed somewhere by direction (though not dictation) from God. It is necessary that the liturgical year begin with this focus on a central, holy intention; for otherwise the story of Jesus, which is about to be rehearsed from conception and birth to death and resurrection, may seem less than what it is: the deliberate fulfilling of divine purpose, worked out through historical process. Only this focus on the central purpose of God in history can keep the story of Jesus from falling into the superstitious or almost magical understandings that often afflict the Christian community, on the one hand, or into the trivialization and irrelevance that  characterize secular interpretation, on the other hand.”

Laurence Hull Stookey -- Calendar: Christ’s Time for The Church

(HT to Steve Manskar at Wesleyan Leadership)