"In Living Color" Liturgy Pieces

I wrote a few pieces of liturgy that we've been using, in different forms and more or less, over the last four weeks of Advent. It took me a while to feel like I got the wording right, so I thought I'd share it here for posterity and in case it helps anyone else.

Silent Night...?

I've been thinking a lot about chaos lately.

As anyone who's ever been even marginally involved in a church around December knows, chaos is kind of par for the course. Every single committee and fellowship group has a Christmas gathering (usually involving some sort of gift exchange), there's usually some sort of cantata or Christmas pageant that has its traditional place in Advent, and attendance usually increases by at least 50%. Not to mention there's often a high anxiety on clergy and "laypeople"* alike to properly convey the mood of the season--plenty of joy, but not too early (we are in Advent, after all); festivities and greenery, but without turning the sanctuary into an ode to Santa Claus; the most theologically rich yet accessible sermons of the entire year...and so on, and so on.

But I find myself wondering...as much as we accept chaos as a given in December, do we embrace it as a part of God's plan? Or do we merely tolerate it as a necessary evil?