Our Advent Calender and Christmas Tree

I am so pleased with my last minute, totally free and "up-cycled" Advent calender...

I made little pockets from brown paper bags, decorated them with clippings from old Christmas cards, a Target ad and the most recent issue of Martha Stewart Living, added generous amounts of iridescent glitter and voila! Now granted, this is not my dream advent calender. I spent way too long seeking inspiration from the wonderfully creative examples of advent awesomeness out there in the blogosphere. I know how adorable and stylish they can be. (Go ahead, Google it and see how creative some people are.) But you know what?  Ta-dah! Its done and in one afternoon! And its all me.  AND its the act of counting the days (and making them count) that I am most interested in.

Each day will have a special activity to celebrate the season. My main goal is to completely immerse ourselves in the biblical account of Jesus's birth. We will be reading from Matthew 1:18-2:23 
and Luke 1 and 2.  Many of our activities will be inspired from these texts.We will soak up the wonder that the same God who created the universe had a plan to redeem his fallen creation which began with him entering the world as a tiny baby, born of a peasant woman, in the poorest of conditions.  Amazing!

Also we will:

Make Christmas tree ornaments

make and drink hot chocolate

cut and decorate snowflakes
make beeswax candles

go for a winter walk

go see Christmas lights at Lake Julian

make gingerbread men

watch a Christmas movie

make snow globes

donate clothes, food and gifts to needy

make outdoor ice art

make presents for Grandparents

 Return to Bethlehem
have a special breakfast, lunch and dinner
visit family and friends
go to a Christmas parade
bake cookies

On down days, we'll read Christmas books by the fire. As a back up for the unexpected monkey wrench, (because life happens:) I have a few pieces of chocolate stashed away.

Wish me luck, I am so excited!!

And here is our lovely tree...

 

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone! We are so thankful to be together on this peaceful snowy day (5 inches, so far!); the first Christmas in our new house. Thank you for praying for us over the last few months. We moved into our new home just after Thanksgiving. The last few weeks have been very full with moving, unpacking, getting settled in, then each of us fell very sick, too.

In the midst of all of this, we also experienced a great tragedy in our extended family. This, in addition to deep sadness and grief, caused us to pull closer to one another, in gratitude for children and family and "every good and perfect gift from above" (James 1:17). With all this going on, I have had much to say, but have been too overwhelmed to bring it to this space. I hope to be back here more in the coming new year.

We wish you all a very Merry Christmas and very blessed and sacred day together; full of remembrance and awe for the greatest gift ever given- "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." (Isaiah 9:6) May you all truly know the love of Jesus today and always.

Some Christmas Cuteness

Our Christmas......tree?

This is a little embarrassing but, I am going to share anyways. I am not a huge fan of spending all that money on a tree that has been cut down and is now dead and will eventually be trashed so, I usually decorate one of my larger houseplants for Christmas. This year I asked for tree trimmings on freecycle. Someone actually responded with an armload of branches trimmed from their fresh norfolk pine. They have been in the trunk of my car and then my front porch for two weeks, as I have been too busy to figure what exactly I had in mind for them. Finally today, I got around to creating this....

I bound the branches, together stuck them in a vase, decorated and called it good. My sweeties love it so I am happy. Merry Christmas!!