I love these years where Advent starts more than a week after Thanksgiving! Having the week to get ready makes everything feel less stressful. Although I do realize I am getting ready for getting ready for Christmas, which does seem silly...
Actually, I love Advent, but now I find it's nice to ease into it. I've
found I need to do 6 Advent things a day so that everyone can do
something each day. Plus stepping up the prayer (daily Mass), fasting (I'll be skipping sweets and minimizing desserts until Christmas proper), and alms giving (Heifer donation Jar, and probably Angel Tree). Plus doing good deeds to put hay in the manger. Plus we need to make an Advent wreath. Plus, to start out, I need
to strip all the walls... I love it all, but it's tough to do from a
standing start.
Anyway, our 6 daily activities this year are:
1. The Advent House, full of Playmobil nativity figures and candy (6 pieces plus a figure behind each door). This year I'll have the older kids set it up.
2. The paper Advent calendar.
3. The Jesse Tree. This is doubling as our Bible time since each day
goes through a part of salvation history in both the Old and New
Testaments. I need to go through and replace the missing ornaments.
4. The ornament: a new Christmas decoration picked out each day!
5. Lighting (or just blowing out ) the Advent wreath candles.
6. A kid gets to pick one thing we all can do as a gift to God that day.
Also, we may do the old velcro nativity scene Advent calendar (if we can find enough pieces!), so that may get combined with number 6.
You can see pictures of everything Advent here.
I also love online Advent calendars! My favorite religious one is on Busted Halo, my favorite secular one is Boola and Kwala.
2 comments:
I thought I was going to be all prepared this year and ordered a set of advent candles online in the proper colors (instead of burgundy and taupe, which is usually the best I can manage at a local store) . . . and then they turned out to be scented, which DOB can't tolerate at all. Bother. Now I'm all unprepared again.
Oh, no! That's discouraging.
They sell 7 day candles around here. They're in tall glass cylinders (not jars), cost $2 each, and come in all colors.
They aren't as classic as the tapers, but I've been able to use them several years running, and the flame is less open for little guys to mess with.
We have them all over, in grocery stores, Target, etc, but that may be because we have a large Hispanic population. They are usually not scented!
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