After Thanksgiving we plunged into Advent. Thankfully with traditions in place we can almost easily get right too it. Also, thankfully, I had thought ahead and bought some new blue and pink candles to have on hand for our table wreath.
I like to have a wreath on the table for meal time and one in the living room to use during our family Bible Time in the evenings.
I have gone in a different direction with a few of our Advent ‘tools’ this year. Our Jesse Tree.
And I made some wooden ‘markers’ to use in our spiral wreath to show where we are each week in Advent and what that particular week’s theme is.
For years I have wanted to mark the final 7 days of Advent using the ancient Great O Antiphons during our Bible Time and marking these in our home some how. We have read them in the mornings before we sing O Come Emmanuel (based on these Antiphons) and I made very simple decorations. I bought some votives to light each of these nights. I wrote on them with a chalk marker.
Last year, instead of our tradition of receiving one each night of Advent, I waited to bring out our Christmas books during the Christmas season. It turned out that we hardly even looked at them. This year I went back to giving the babies a book a night and I brought this book cubby up from the basement to use to store them during the season. I’m happy I went back to our tradition and I really like how tidy this keeps the books and displays them.
This season of Advent is flying by but I’m always so thankful for it.
