When even Advent feels stressful...

Hi friends!

I have had a few friends contact me and they are not feeling relaxed or prepared for Advent. Specifically, having the books ready and wrapped. This is NOT meant to be stressful, but as with anything new it can take some adjusting. My first year doing Advent it felt a little bit overwhelming. It gets easier!

MY BOOKS AREN'T WRAPPED/I DON'T HAVE TIME!

The first year I wrapped daily advent books they were from the library! Not only did we not have the funds to place a bulk order of books (this is before I knew about thriftbooks), my mom helped me wrap the books. AND I WAITED UNTIL THE DAY BEFORE ADVENT! <- That was the first mistake. BUT DON'T FEAR... if you have books that aren't wrapped there is an easy solution:

CHRISTMAS BAGS! Thank you Jesus for bags! Throw a book in there with some tissue paper and ta-da! 

THE KIDS WON'T STAY STILL FOR ADVENT READING!

There were nights where all we did was the Lord's Prayer after lighting the candles. There were also nights we completely forgot in the beginning! You do what you can do. Now the boys understand there is a devotional plus prayer. The littlest (3 years old) follows his big brothers. It does get easier friends. 

WHAT BOOKS DO I BUY?!

This is something specific to what you and your family enjoy. I have included the first order I placed in 2016 (below). I will tell you -> these have all been winners BUT if you haven't yet purchased books, these are our favorites and a fun start to the stash:

• Merry Christmas Strega Nona - liturgical + Italian = winning

• The Crippled Lamb - It's long, but is wonderful in showing Jesus was sent for ALL!

• A Pirates Night Before Christmas - You read with the accent and all. The boys love it.

• Mr. Willowby's Christmas Tree - is a one man's trash is another man's treasure type of story.

• How the Grinch Stole Christmas and Polar Express - Classics!

The Little Drummer Boy · 

 

$3.59

The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree · 

 

$3.59

I Spy Christmas · 

 

$3.59

Snowmen at Christmas · 

 

$3.99

Bear Stays up for Christmas · 

 

$3.79

Merry Christmas, Strega Nona · 

 

$3.59

Stranger in the Woods : A Photographic Fantasy · 

 

$3.59

Dream Snow · 

 

$3.59

Christmas Day in the Morning · 

 

$3.59

Who's That Knocking on Christmas Eve? · 

 

$3.59

The Legend of the Poinsettia · 

 

$6.23

The Crippled Lamb · 

 

$3.99

Christmas Trolls · 

 

$3.99

A Pirate's Night Before Christmas · 

 

$3.79

The Polar Express · 

 

$3.59

How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (Classic Seuss) · 

 

$3.59

If You Take a Mouse to the Movies · 

 

$3.59

The Wild Christmas Reindeer · 

 

$3.59

Room for a Little One : A Christmas Tale · 

 

$3.59

Who is Coming to Our House? · 

 

$3.59

Mr. Willowby's Christmas Tree · 

 

$15.95

Mortimer's Christmas Manger · 

 

$3.59

 

 

Advent Prep Part 1 - a sweet surprise

By now, I'd have Christmas music on all day, would have baked some biscotti and been planning all my weekends through Christmas day. Packing them with festive times. Lights, hot chocolate, decorating days, festivals. All. the. Christmas. Things.

When deciding to observe advent, honestly.... I was pretty anxious about everything I would miss out on. I was prepared for a serious case of Christmas FOMO.

Surprisingly, I'm less anxious than I ever am around this time. I realize I've focused so much energy on making everything so unforgettable and special (like we see commercials, movies, magazines, blah blah..)  that I wasn't actually ENJOYING it. It could be just me. I'm a type-A to the core. (Even though my boys are really trying their best to squeeze every last bit of that out of me.  That's another post for another day...) 🤣😥

So I'm happy to report. There has been no Christmas music, no Christmas shopping, no Christmas baking. Yet. Just noticing the change in cool fresh mornings, warm cups of tea, seeing the boys get little red-tipped noses from the crisp air. Enjoying the simple things that have ended up being so much more rewarding. 💕

Tradition Timeline - Part 3

CHRISTMAS EVE -  🎉PARTY.TIME.🎉 Advent reading, lighting of the center candle, decorating the tree, Christmas eve mass, optional gifting of christmas pajamas for the boys. Don't forget some drinks for mom and dad 🍷🍸 

CHRISTMAS DAY -  The day we have been waiting for!! 12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS START NOW. huh?! We sing a carol and open the FIRST GIFT OF CHRISTMAS! This is baby Jesus wrapped in a little box. Either an ornate wrapping job(fit for a king), or a minimalistic wrapping job (humble, like He humbled himself by becoming man). You can approach this either way. But WHO gets to unwrap this gift?!?!?! We have a system we use. Will share in the christmas day post with more details.

12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS ENSUE -  In this post I will share the different ways we celebrate and the different feast days, all leading up to the feast of epiphany (this is the day the wise-men arrived)... the wisemen literally arrive in the nativity scene after 12 days of traveling through the living room. This is a big day, the final and 12th day of Christmas.

Tradition Timeline - Part 2

BLACK FRIDAY - We decided when the boys were young we would go through the extra work to get a REAL christmas tree🌲🎄. When we were financially tight OR for those of you that love a good fake tree we did it a little bit different. This is the day we pick up our tree. Don't forget to grab a couple of pre-cut (free) branches for your advent wreath! We will be putting lights on the tree the day we get it, and putting out our advent wreath and nativity scene (minus baby Jesus and the wise men). EVERYTHING else waits until Christmas eve.

ADVENT -  You can read the history on wikipedia. This is a great how-to guide here that we use! The season of waiting and preparation. The boys will unwrap 1 book each night. We read the book and then finish the night reading scripture by candle light at the advent wreath. Details on the books we read will be posted in seperate blog post.

Tradition Timeline - Part 1

Some of you have wanted details about advent, why we are waiting to decorate for Christmas, what we do in the meantime. There will be follow-up posts about each tradition. 😊

November 1 - (here) Grateful walk and filling out our leaves through Thanksgiving eve.

Before Thanksgiving - Wrap all advent books. Finish christmas shopping. The goal is to be done before the holiday rush so that during advent you can relax and enjoy.

Thanksgiving day - Either we host, or our family hosts. We have no distinct family traditions this day. 🏈🦃🍗🍠🍲🍸😴 This WAS the calm before the Christmas-storm for us. This year will be different.

*November Preparation*

Those that know me, know the Christmas music is usually on in September and little bits of Christmas flair pop up around the house until the day after Thanksgiving. Then, it's a Christmas explosion. Yes, I have always been the Christmas before halloween person.

BUT....

We have slowly been changing our ways over here and it has been WONDERFUL.

I will be posting on that next, but with November almost here I wanted to share a quick idea to transition from halloween to getting our hearts and minds ready for Thanksgiving.

I tend to go against the grain. Especially if that grain is consumerism. It first started because we could not FINANCIALLY afford all the latest and greatest for the boys.

However once we could financially afford it, we didn't change a thing. It was a blessing in disguise. We realized, we could not in good conscience AFFORD what materialism and consumerism teaches our boys.

SO I am on a mission to fill the boys with meaningful, exciting and memorable holidays - the less is more approach.

Ok. So if you are still with me, here is how we kickoff NOVEMBER!!

Before (or on) the first day of November we go for a walk. We find a nice branch.  Not just a stick, but it has to have little branches sprouting off of it. Some leaves and pinecones are usually picked up as well to decorate with. 

From there we come home and place the branch/sticks in a vase. Each day from November 1 up until Thanksgiving-eve we end the day writing down something we are thankful for. We write it on either leaf shaped paper, or autumn colored paper and attach to the branches we picked up...

Why sweet and seasoned?

It is here, friends. THE blog. I kept going back and forth with different names, but SWEETLY SEASONED seemed to stick.

Why sweet?

With 4 boys we believe we have been blessed with a rich and sweet life. and sometimes sweaty too.

Also... Baking. It is a favorite pastime. I will be sharing tips and tricks on how I navigate my kitchen life.

Why Seasoned?

Seasoned because I am a huge fan of seasons... holidays... all things that create memories, traditions and add richness to life. So I will be sharing different ways we celebrate.

I hope to help, inspire and encourage other parents out there with ideas to keep it sweet in your own home. 

It can be simple to create memories and add sweetness to our homes, making them sweetly seasoned.

xo

Nat