What's happened to Advent?!

I had to relate my frustration while searching for an Advent wreath yesterday. I need a small cheap one for a children's Sunday School classroom. I looked for the candles first, and went to my local huge home decor store that has aisles of candles. None. In fact, no purple at all, except for some scuffed squat boysenberry-scented ones that made me gag when I sniffed them. I asked a girl stocking holiday tins nearby if they had any Advent wreath candles, and she looked at me like I had 3 heads. Another store employee nearby said she had found one box the day before, but she couldn't locate it. I left to check the craft store over at the (gulp) huge mall down the road. Which I avoid from Thanksgiving until New Year's.

No good purple candles, other than more scented ones, and some really light lavender tapers. Finally found two boxes of Advent wreath candles jammed in the back of a shelf, so I took the last two (sorry for anyone to come after me). After spending about 30 minutes choosing supplies to make a wreath, I ran into a parishioner at the register. She asked what I was making, and I told her.

The manager, behind the register said, "Oh, an Advent wreath? I have a box of those in the back. I couldn't decide where to put them out." Turns out they had two different kinds. Two boxes of them stuck in the stock room because no one knew where to display them.

I said, "You might want to put them out, since Advent starts this weekend....this is the time people might be looking for them...." I'm not sure that happened, after I left. I followed the off-duty Santa out to the parking lot thoroughly depressed, with the mall Christmas music rattling around in my head.....

While our church members are learning to tolerate our insistence on a little Advent before Christmas, our culture has forgotten all about it. I suppose when I consider that Christmas started coming out in stores even before Halloween this year, the Advent wreaths might have been stocked back in July....I used to take comfort in the Southern acceptance of Christian church tradition in the public eye, but I no longer think that is the case. Maybe it's just the more mainline traditions that have become largely silent and invisible. I didn't check the evangelical Bible store farther down in the mall, figuring that they wouldn't carry Advent supplies. Should I have checked there first?

I will definitely be having a family Advent wreath workshop next year. Where else are our people to find the tools to help them wait and prepare?