Three sets of shoes were left out with great anticipation tonight!!
I don’t think they are going to be disappointed.
St. Nicholas brought new slippers, candy canes, oranges, bears stuffed with wheat (to warm in the microwave for owies or tummy aches), new books, and a new movie!
Our Advent has started out wonderfully. I’m really enjoying the extra family time in the evening when we do our Jesse tree, pray together, read a Christmas story, and add a sticker to our Advent Calendar.
On the knitting front, I took a brief break from the endless ruffle scarves (I have 5 done now! I’m getting faster, I can pump one out in a couple hours) to crochet a hat for the baby one of my friends had today. I got to hold her tonight, she wasn’t even 12 hours old!!
(excuse the terrible cell phone picture)
We are enjoying our Advent Storybook and my husband and I are reading an Advent devotional every night.
I’m looking forward to giving the kids the books St. Nicholas is bringing tomorrow. Mary has been asking a lot of questions about Santa lately, she is very skeptical and we just aren’t sure how we want to handle it. We put most of our focus on Jesus and other Catholic traditions, so up until now Santa has just been a little side game. I’m not sure what is stopping me from just telling her he isn’t real, it seems like such a big deal… I’m just not sure why? Any insight? How do you handle Santa?
Joining up with Ginny’s yarn along again this week. Thanks for stopping by!
If I had to pick a favourite from our family’s Advent traditions I think the Jesse Tree would probably be it. Before we were married I used to imagine one day doing it with my husband and children, I love it.
This is our Jesse Tree. I made it out of felt in 2009 when Mary was 2. I used giant panels of felt from our fabric store.
Our ornaments are also made out of felt. I didn’t follow any specific templates, I loosely based them off of Jessica’s examples.
Our children are only 5.5, 3.5, and 1 so we use a simple illustrated children’s bible (which appears to be out of print now but I really love it).
It’s got short, simple stories for every night, that are easy for our little one to understand.
For Mary we are going to stop our normal school routine for Advent and start working on a lapbook and the Jesse Tree study guide instead. I think she is ready for something a little more challenging this year. She has inherited my love for traditions so I know it’s going to be lots of fun.
Finding Joy in the Little Things 