Hence, the ideal Christmas is one that is hermetically sealed off from anything sad or unsettling. Whether we know it or not, this "Merry Christmas" ethos is something we all buy into.
Such is Christmas in the modern world. However, very little of that has anything to do with Advent. True Advent requires a focus on topics that are anything but calm, bright, gentle, or cheery. Advent requires that we be unsettled and perhaps even saddened as we listen to the doomsday message "The End Is Near!", as we acknowledge our sin and evil, as we hear the bracing message that God abhors this world's proud fat cats.
Of course, we do not wish to deny the genuine good news of Christmas or the proper sense of spiritual cheer that Christ's birth brings. But neither do we want that gospel to be larded over by the outer trappings of the season. Because for the good news to be truly good, it needs to come to the real world—a world that does not stop being harsh, evil, and dark just because it's Christmas. In fact, it's precisely that harsh, evil darkness that properly reminds us why a Saviour needed to "advent" into our time and space in the first place.
By Scott E. Hoezee - Reformed Worship Magazine#45