I love the season of advent; the reminder of hope, love, joy, and peace. This is the first year I have added a home advent wreath tradition instead of just witnessing the lighting at church. I like that my boys can participate more intimately with this preparation for Christmas. My wreath is as simple as it comes and was put together with love and helping hands. I had all kinds of grand plans of ribbons and fancy tags, but this is as far as I got. We have been lighting the candle each night at dinner.
Our advent Jesse Tree that I wrote about a couple years ago is still a daily highlight. But for some reason we couldn't find the tree trunk this year. I know it made the move because we used it last Christmas, but despite many eyeballs looking it remains out of sight. The boys and I didn't want to skip this special activity so we improvised and created...
...a Tinker Toy Advent Jesse Tree. We still use old Christmas Cards to "wrap" our ornaments in, but it is becoming harder and harder to find cards. Most of what we receive are the lovely photo post cards, so a few of those have been folded up and used as wrapping too. I have to admit that as much as I like Christmas cards we have not budgeted for postage and will be sending out eCards this year. It is part of my keeping with the spirit of the season, without going crazy or breaking the bank.
One last little glimpse into my Christmas world. To the right is our tree.
I love that little hands helped to decorate it. I have high hopes that someday a beautiful elf (who is known throughout these parts as Momma) will stop by one evening after bedtime and ever so carefully rearrange our beloved ornaments. Getting Christmas together has been a slow process thus far. My magical hours between 8-10pm where things get done has instead been devoted to a precious babe who is teething and having some Momma separation issues when it comes to bedtime. So for now, things are slow to get done, or just not done at all, and that is okay by me.
Going forward into December I hope to share a few more side dishes that didn't get posted last month, since our Christmas feast will be basically a repeat of Thanksgiving, thanks to my parents procurement of two pastured turkeys this year. A few of the gifts we made last year (sorry not gifts we are making this year as I don't want to ruin any surprises), and any other Christmas-y inspirations I have time to share. I hope everone has a calm and blessed December.