To get ready and have us focused on Christ, I made a second tree this year. We call it our Advent tree.
I made about a dozen ornaments this year with the idea of adding more in years to come. All of the ornaments are Chrismons, which is a fancy word for ornaments that stand for the name or nature of Christ. My personal favorite is the Chi Rho... the superimposition of the Greek letters Chi and Rho which are the first two letters in Christos or Christ. I also made two each of a crown, chalice, dove, cross, and butterfly.
Then, under the tree, I wrapped 25 gifts... one for each day leading from December 1st to December 25th.
Mostly the gifts are Christmas books that we either had from last year or that I went ahead and bought for this year, a couple of Christmas movies, a magnetic Christmas book that DebraLynn's mom gave Sydney her first Christmas, a few crafts and stickers to decorate gifts and the Little People Nativity Set my mom gave Sydney (which is actually four presents... Mary and Joseph on Dec. 2nd, the manger and animals on the 9th, shepherd and angel on the 16th and Baby Jesus on the 25th.So while I did buy new books and one new movie (The Veggie Tales Christmas Special), those along with everything but the crafts will be reused next year. I wanted it to build excitement for the coming of Christmas morning, not be a toy explosion. I also have some special activities planned, including the Georgetown Christmas Stroll, the Nutcracker ballet, A Christmas Carol at the Scottish Rite, Main Street Bethlehem, Nature in Lights at Ft. Hood and a visit to the Houston zoo.
I love this season so much and with the Advent tree, I feel even more focused on the birth of Christ and that makes it even more special to me.
I love the idea of wrapping the Christmas books each year to build excitement. Of course, since we do the 12 days of Christmas, that would be 36 days straight of presents, which might give Pip the wrong impression about how life works. We might steal this idea for the last week before Christmas, though.
ReplyDeleteI also like your Chrismons. Our local needleworking store was closed when we were on that side of town Monday, but I can try again to find gold embroidery thread for the edges. I like that way of finishing.