Emmanuel:
An Advent Calendar
It is the beautiful task of Advent … to open doors of hope.
— Pope Benedict XVI
December 1: San Pedro props open the gate. Mexicanos, who once had to climb the wall,
now walk into heaven as el arcángel Miguel y los Angelitos sing, “Oh ven, oh ven, Emmanuel.”
December 2: On her “Gratitude Advent Calendar,” Laura writes in big block letters,
“Another clear scan.”
December 3: “When I pray and journal, I’m unavailable,” Sara reminds her children.
December 4: “It’s time to do more than acknowledge on whose land we stand,”
the university president says. “Indigenous students will receive full scholarships.”
December 5: Eric shakes the trainer’s hand when they first meet.
“I’m out of shape. I need to take better care of my body.”
December 6: The giant Confederate flag that flew for years by the interstate lies in a heap
at Amos’s feet. Horns honk as he hoists the American flag.
December 7: Ana opens the door. George hands her a casserole wrapped
in an off-white dish towel. “I hope your wife recovers quickly,” he says.
December 8: The Sopwith Camel sputters to a stop among the makeshift tents.
“This is the true meaning of Christmas,” Charlie Brown says to Snoopy,
unloading food and water.
December 9: David tells his wife he knows he’s been working too much.
He has a reservation at their favorite restaurant Friday.
December 10: “Are you sure?” asks the senator at the hearing. “Yes,” the billionaire replies.
“The top one percent has enough. Raise our taxes.”
December 11: Eyes welling, eighty-three-year-old Sharon reads on her phone,
“We’ll buy the ticket if you join us for Christmas, Mom.”
December 12: Eyes wide, the archbishop stands when Jesús and La Virgen de Guadalupe
enter his office. “No puedo creerlo,” says the bishop. Jesús replies, “Créelo.”
December 13: Sitting on Santa’s lap, Cindy Lou looks into his eyes: “All I want for Christmas
is Julia’s SNAP benefits restored.”
December 14: “The insurer will pay,” Linda gasps, rereading the letter. “I don’t have to appeal.”
December 15: In the confinement barn’s squealing scrum of four thousand hogs,
Sam searches again on his phone for Humane Farm Animal Care, then taps Join.
December 16: Ed loads his firearms into his pickup for the sheriff’s Cash for Guns program.
December 17: The head coach meets with a trans student.
“The other coaches and I want you to try out next season.”
December 18: “¿Tres?” says the waiter at Los Reyes Magos,
when a rabbi, priest and imam walk in together.
December 19: “After I lost Maya, I went to a grief group for a year,” Ted tells his friend
whose wife died of cancer. “It got me through.”
December 20: The board votes to shutter coal plants and retrain utility workers in renewables.
December 21: The minority leader pulls a bottle of single malt Scotch from the box.
The note from the majority leader reads, “Your brand I believe. Merry Christmas.”
December 22: The president signs the bipartisan reparations bill, then hands the pen
to Rosa Parks’ niece.
December 23: “No screens?” asks Marguerite, the oldest child. “You can do it,” her dad says.
“We’re having a family day.”
December 24: Rudolph’s nose glowing, Santa picks up the children ICE separated
from their parents to take them home for Christmas.
December 25: In St. Luke’s Hospital, Bethlehem PA, Jesús is born to María and José,
who traveled there from México.
John Kenneth Gibson is a graduate student in Spanish literature and cultural production at North Carolina State University. His research interests include religion, the body, gender, and neoliberalism. His essay “The Contested Travesti Bodies of Las malas and Tesis sobre una domesticaión” is forthcoming in Lexington Book’s Non-Normative Sexuality in U.S. Latinx and Latin American Literature.