Ok, it's probably like being dragged up in front of the class to have your comment responded to in the blog, and for that I apologize, but I was starting to write a comments-novel and decided to just do a post instead.
Actually, I never *got* Advent. What's with the waiting for a single day? Time will pass, usually more slowly or more quickly than I'd like at any given time, but it's going to pass whether or not I do anything about it. My mom describes Advent as preparing - but why only prepare four weeks out of 52? The world's a pretty hairy place, and it could use some preparing year 'round. I'm very happy that you seem to get something out of it, but Advent - like a lot of other religious holidays - I never got very excited about. (So wouldn't you know it, I became a Quaker).
I like the liturgical calendar, with its different seasons and days to focus on different aspects of faith because...I'm really freaking lazy. Seriously. If I left it up to my own whims, I would never do things like preparing, celebrating, and repenting. They would slip down to the bottom of my to-do list, like swiffering under the bed.
Having seasons or days set aside to focus on those things makes me remember why they're important, and it increases the likelihood that they'll be done the rest of the year. It's not that I only do my preparing four weeks a year - it's that I spend those four weeks trying to get better at it. It's a time for unpacking what it means to prepare for God's presence here on earth, taking it apart and putting it back together and seeing all the places where I'm not exactly singing O Come Emmanuel as the season of Christmas approaches. The work I do during these four weeks will bear fruit in my life the rest of the year.
So, I guess that's the best part about the liturgical calendar - it tells me what my work is for a certain period of time. See above note re: laziness. I can only focus on a few things at a time spiritually, and the rhythm of the liturgical year makes sure that I'm hitting all the major points, and not just skipping over the rough stuff that makes me uncomfortable.
For example, Lent is a good time to think about death. As in, my death, my small, personal death when I return to the dust from whence I came. I don't think it's really in my nature to set aside a little over a month to ponder that one every year. But in the context of Lent, with Easter right ahead reminding me that God is with me even in the darkness, I can deal with it.
One of the reasons I can look at my death with a little less fear during Lent is that everyone else at St. Ned's is doing the same thing, thinking about their own deaths (I hope not everyone is thinking about my death, anyway). It's in the liturgy and the lectionary and there's a chance to work it out through worship and hashing it out with others. The rhythm of the church year creates safe spaces for deep work to happen.
Small point - Christmas is actually a season, lasting 12 days (I think there's a song about that...) and leading into Epiphany. Advent is the preparation for the season of Christmas, so it's not about the one day. We don't really have a lot of 'one day' holidays. Easter is a season that lasts 6 Sundays. Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, and Good Friday are points in Holy Week, but they're part of the greater whole as well, and are sometimes best approached as a group. I think the message there is that it takes time to really immerse our small selves in what each season is trying to teach us.
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