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.