Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all my adoring fans… ok, ok, who am I kidding? So, I have had so much bloggable, fun stuff rolling around in my brain during this happy, crazy, busy month of December. But, as you can see, blogging has not been on the top of my to-do list… now its catch-up time.
Let’s start with the important things first… Jesus, coming to earth is the reason we celebrate.
Discovering Advent
I have never really thought much or known much about Advent. So this year seemed the perfect year to start my Advent education. I felt a little overwhelmed by the topic, and didn’t really know where to start, or what to do. Thanks to my friend Brandy who explained the candy calendar she makes for/with her kids and provided the link to a “how to make an advent calendar” she helped me get started off in the right direction.
Continuing my search… I wandered across a website that provided a calendar of activities for each day of Advent. (It happened to be a calendar from 2007, so the dates/days didn’t match up…but it worked) For each day there was a scripture, activity, ideas and a song to sing. Each day you were to light the appropriate number of candles for the advent week. Very cool!! Due to the happenings of life we didn’t followed the schedule every day but it was so much fun to learn and teach the kiddies.
I am excited for next year. As you can see from the pictures, my candles are not the traditional purple, pink and white. I just used the candles I had on hand.
During Advent, I also re-learned some lessons. One lesson in particular- on the “Peace” Sunday I arrived at church thinking about peace, my heart filled with His peace, feeling peaceful and having a peaceful morning (get the theme) and then in the beginning of the second service (yes, I was attending both services that morning) something VERY, VERY UN-PEACEFUL happened. This incident was bigger than a potty accident or misbehaving child, this was earth- shaking. My “peace” could have disappeared in an instant, but His peace stayed with me, bringing me peace in the middle of turmoil.
How about a few pictures.
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| Gathering supplies for our candy calendar. |
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| First step: glue cardboard to posterboard. |
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| Write numbers, add 2pieces of candy, stuff with tissue paper. I used smarties. |
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| Tie a bow around it. |
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| Getting their "surprise" |
