This past Saturday, I found myself home alone. Not “the house is quiet, I’ll read a book” home alone. I mean Kevin McCallister home alone. No wife. No kids. No schedule. No one to stop me from making objectively poor decisions. The kind of freedom that should honestly come with a warning label.

I briefly considered the obvious route: eating an entire cheese pizza by myself, setting elaborate booby traps throughout the house, and waging psychological warfare on imaginary burglars. You know, classic spiritual disciplines. But instead, in a shocking display of maturity that surprised even me, I decided to do the most adult thing possible: hang Christmas lights.

I threw on some music, grabbed the ladder, and went to war with extension cords that were absolutely tangled by demons last January so I did the responsible adult thing, I sat down… in my car and went and got new ones. I hung lights. I adjusted them. I stepped back. I adjusted them again. I climbed up the later and on to my roof to get the highest peak on my house got half way done and realized I was almost 40 on my roof with no equipment but some converse all star sneakers and the Holy Spirit and decided that the high peak was not worth becoming the ghost of Christmas present; and climb back down off the roof praying the whole time.

Then I did something even better, I took a break after I had another near death experience on the ladder, and went for a quick visit to see my friend Stoner. Yes, that Stoner. The one and only king of Dad Jokes, The one whose writing you can find over at Stoner’s Simple Thoughts on WordPress. Good words. Honest words. The kind of writing that doesn’t pretend everything is fine when it clearly isn’t.

We talked. We laughed. We probably solved some of the world’s problems and then immediately forgot how.

I came home finished the lights and the blowups in the yard with the couple of new ones that I picked up while I was out and capped the night with Pad Thai. because nothing says “reflective Advent preparation” like noodles at the end of a long day, and by the time I was done, I was wrecked and actively being reminded that I am not as young as I used to be.

Physically tired. Mentally spent. Spiritually…quiet. I stood in my front yard and looked at the house. The outside looked great. Honestly? It looked ready. Lights glowing. Warm. Inviting. The kind of house that silently says, “Good things happen in here.” And then I thought about inside, glancing in one of the windows with a mouth full of noodles

Christmas was half up. Half unpacked. Totes everywhere like Amazon had lost a bet. Ornaments sitting in boxes next to ornaments already hung. Stockings not yet filled. Dishes stacked on the counter like a Jenga tower of guilt. Wrapping paper remnants from some previous battle still lurking in corners. The house looked ready. The house was not ready. And that’s when it hit me. This is Advent.

We are incredible at preparing for Christmas. We string lights. We decorate trees. We dig out the “good plates” like relics from a sacred vault. We cook like we’re feeding the Roman Empire. We spend hours, no, days, making our homes look beautiful for the holidays.

But the harder question is this: Are we actually ready for the holidays? Not the aesthetic. Not the vibe. The hospitality. Have we prepared our hearts for what this season demands. Have we made our homes merely impressive, or genuinely welcoming? Because those are not the same thing.

You can have a Pinterest-perfect living room and still panic when someone knocks on the door. You can have lights visible from space and still pray no one actually comes inside. And if that sounds familiar, congratulations, you’re human.

Now if you know me or paid any attention to my holiday writing. I am a huge fan of National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. It is the perfect Christ movie. It is to the point that I sent a quick video to my sister of the lights up on the house and my sister responded with “Good Job Clark” Now stay with me because I am going to make a statement that will have a few Baptist ladies clutching their pearls. National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation remains the most theologically accurate Christmas movie ever made.

 Clark Griswold is ready. The house is perfect. The tree is enormous. The gifts are wrapped. The lights, oh, the lights, are visible from low-earth orbit, which is exactly how God intended Christmas lights to be. Clark has prepared for Christmas. What he has not prepared for…is Cousin Eddie.

Eddie shows up unannounced, RV blazing, dog in tow, social awareness nowhere to be found. And you can see it on Clark’s face, the panic. That tight smile. That internal scream. That realization that all the preparation in the world does not mean you’re ready for people.

Because hospitality isn’t tested by the guests you planned for. It’s tested by the ones you didn’t.

And Advent, inconveniently, is not about controlled environments. It’s about incarnation. God showing up in the mess. God entering without asking permission. God arriving in a way that disrupts your plans and rearranges your furniture. We laugh at Clark, but we do the same thing.

We prepare for the idea of Christmas. We are often unprepared for the reality of it. Here’s the thing Scripture is painfully consistent about: Biblical hospitality always starts before anyone shows up. You don’t wait for the knock to clean the house You don’t scramble when the doorbell rings. You prepare because someone matters. Advent is the Church standing in the doorway of history saying, “Someone important is coming. Clear the table.” Not add to the table. Clear it.

That’s the heartbeat of Advent, not just remembering that Christ once came, but reckoning with the terrifying, hope-filled truth that He is coming again. And here’s where it gets uncomfortable: Most of us are fully booked.

Our hearts are Airbnb’d out to: Busyness that masquerades as importance Resentment we swear we’ll deal with “after the holidays” Nostalgia that worships what was instead of trusting what is Exhaustion that becomes an excuse That low-grade anxiety humming beneath every Christmas playlist “No Vacancy.” And yet Advent dares us to flip the sign anyway: Room Available.

Scripture never treats preparation like a spa day. Isaiah doesn’t say, “Light a candle and reflect quietly.” He says: “Prepare the way of the Lord.” That’s road construction language. Tear things up. Fill potholes. Remove obstacles. Anyone who’s ever driven through construction knows this is not a peaceful process.

John the Baptist shows up and makes it worse: Repent. Reorder. Get honest. Advent preparation is not decorative, it’s disruptive. Hospitality in Scripture always costs something. Abraham interrupts his day for strangers. The widow of Zarephath gives Elijah her last meal. Mary’s entire life plan is obliterated by an angel and a yes. Preparation that doesn’t cost anything is just décor.

We love to villainize the innkeeper. Every Christmas pageant needs a bad guy, and apparently it’s him. But Scripture never says he was cruel. It never says he slammed the door. It never says he hated God. It just says there was no room. That’s the warning.

He didn’t refuse Jesus out of hostility. He refused Him out of crowdedness. And that should terrify us. Because Advent asks a brutal question: If Christ came knocking today, not as a baby, but as King, would there be space…or just excuses?

Biblical hospitality is not about perfection. It’s about availability. God does not ask for a spotless heart. He asks for a cleared one. You don’t prepare your heart like a museum: “Don’t touch. Don’t sit. Don’t disrupt.” You prepare it like a table. A table that gets used. A table that gets messy. A table where things spill and conversations linger too long.

Advent preparation looks like: Setting down bitterness like an extra chair you don’t need anymore. Clearing old grief instead of calling it “tradition” Making peace where possible and surrender where it’s not. This is not tidy work. It’s necessary work.

Mary didn’t have a nursery. She didn’t have a plan. She didn’t have control. What she had was space. “Let it be to me according to your word.” No staging. No conditions. No backup plan. She made space in her body, her future, her reputation, her entire life, for God to dwell. And Christ still enters the world the same way. Not through polished hearts. Through surrendered ones.

We treat Advent like a spiritual to-do list. More services. More songs. More posts. More noise. And not that any of those things are bad in of themselves.

But biblical hospitality says the opposite. You don’t make room by adding furniture. You make room by removing it.

 Advent invites us to fast, not just from food, but from:

Control.

Noise.

The need to be right.

The need to be nostalgic instead of present.

It is a season of holy subtraction.

Here’s the final twist: Christ doesn’t come for a weekend. Biblical hospitality assumes presence, not performance. You don’t prep for a guest you plan to ignore. Advent prepares us not just to receive Christ—but to host Him. To live as if He actually dwells with us. Eats at our table. Walks through our mess. That requires more than lights on the house. It requires space in the heart.

Advent whispers something wildly dangerous, God still desires to dwell with His people. Not just in sanctuaries. Not just in nostalgia. But in homes, hearts, and lives that have made room, however imperfectly.

So maybe this season, the most faithful act of hospitality isn’t throwing a better party. Maybe it’s standing in the quiet of a half-decorated house, looking at the mess, and praying: “Lord, what’s taking up space that belongs to You?”

Because when room is made, He comes. And He never arrives empty-handed.

Stay Salty