Advent in our Home

Advent started with "Advent by Candlelight" hosted by the lovely ladies at St.Paul downtown. An evening for ladies only, it's an opportunity to fellowship and worship Jesus in service and song.  Each table is beautifully decorated by a hostess and dessert and small treats are served along with coffee and tea. We are reminded of the true meaning of Christmas - Christ born among us, come to earth to save mankind. 

Here's the lovely table I sat at! It was a much needed evening for me as I was already caught up in the shopping, baking, packing lists. Tis the season for list making and sure failure - either to put it on the list in the first place, forgetting to look at the list or running out of time to do what's on the list. Thankfully, I was reminded that the lists don't really matter. I forget. I admit it! I get soooo distracted! Why do I think Christmas can be bought, baked or packed? Christmas is given in grace. Christmas comes to remind me (because I get distracted) that God saved me - out of his love for me, despite me! That's the gift - unwrap that!

I have several Advent wreaths I rotate yearly depending on my mood. Here's one given and made by my friend and fellow pastor's wife Karen. It's a lovely wreath with 4 votives glued on and a plaid bow. I pop Rowe pottery with the angel cutouts (given to me by another dear friend) in the middle. We have our Advent devotion every night after supper as that's what works for us usually. We're doing a Jesse tree again from here. I like that it goes back to all the familiar Bible stories like Jonah, Noah, Rahab, etc and answers the question - what does this have to do with Christmas? But we've also done "Celebrate Jesus at Christmas", "Countdown to Christmas" and "Family Countdown to Christmas". And a friend recently mentioned to me that Thriving Family  from Focus on the Family has a free one to download on their website. Maybe we'll try it next year! 
I've been personally enjoying "Martin Luther's Christmas Book" for the second year in a row. It's a lovely read on the different aspects of the nativity with profound insight. It has enhanced my appreciation for the ordinary people God chose to involve in the sending of his son to earth. 

Of course, the children have their favourite books too! Some are "relics" from my childhood and others have been added over the years. I was reading "The Miracle of Jonathan Toomey"to Zanna yesterday and started weeping when ...... well, I won't ruin it for you. And good golly, when I read "The Fir Tree" I better have a kleenex box nearby. 
Advent seems to have been taken over by the secular as the season for getting ready for Santa coming. We try our best to stay focused on getting ready for Jesus' birthday!
On a completely unrelated note, our new IKEA store (the biggest in the country) is totally awesome and we also went to see the new Muppet movie and it's hilarious! I loved 80's robot and the 80's music played throughout the movie:)

A tour of the village

When I was growing up, my siblings and I would receive basically 3 items in our stockings on Christmas morning - a bag of M&M's, an ornament and a piece of a collection that the folks had started for each of us and added to every year. My sister had an angel collection, my brother had nutcrackers and I had the Dept 56 Snow Village.  My mother enjoyed the benefit of these collections of ours as she would use them in her yearly decorating. She was devastated enough to start her own Snow Village collection after I moved out and took my pieces with me! Each piece reflects a part of my life, a place we lived or something I was interested in. 

Have to have at least one church in a village! I'm sure it's Lutheran although it doesn't say (haha). The nativity goes next to it. 

This would be the parsonage and there we are at our arrival - The new pastor, his blond wife and baby (Will was 2 but go with me on this). 

Here we have the movie theatre playing "It's a Wonderful Life" and the all important Starbucks. I got this one in it's early days of popularity. Who'd have thought I'd have a Starbucks hot chocolate in China's  Forbidden City?!!

The flower shop is from the year I was married. I also have a hair salon my mother tweaked the sign on to say "Rachel's hair salon". 
I bought the Chinese restaurant 2 years ago on eBay for a steal and it's definitely one of my favourites! 

Here's the music studio - notice the violin playing snowman? Love it! 

This is the limited edition year 2000 house which was the year we had Will. Notice the moving van pulled up to it? Story of my life moving an average of every year and a half growing up. 
I don't have a picture of Graceland but that one is for the time we lived in Memphis, TN. 
Carrying on the tradition for Will, he has a nutcracker collection.

We try and read the story of the Nutcracker every year and have even seen the ballet a few times. 
I have not started a collection for Zanna yet. I'm not sure what to do, but I have a year to figure it out. Any suggestions?

Wrapping it Up

The closer we get to Christmas, the closer we get to "wrapping it up"! We finished our artist study of Van Gogh which was a great thing for both kids to study at the same time. With their age difference, there aren't many subjects we can do this with. I found the free curriculum here. 

We really enjoyed it and they both did their own version of "Sunflowers" and "the olive trees".

We also discovered the knitting loom. For the needle challenged, this makes a great craft for all of us! After Will made his hat, Zanna wanted in on the action and made one for himself. I made one (although I look stupid in a hat) and we just finished one for Grandpa! We're limited to hats at this point but I do hope we can branch out to some scarves.

They each had one last cooking class for the year. Zanna learned the difference between fruits and vegetables and we even took a little tour of the produce department. They they made some fruit kabobs and a vegetable salad. Will's class made a pizza wreath, "holiday sticks (fruit), and a tree cake. Very cute!

I took Zanna to the ballet for "A Little Princess" and last week the whole family went to see the musical "Oliver" at the NAC. In view of our fast approaching trip to the UK, these fit right in! We've been singing the songs from Oliver ever since and Will thanked God that night "for food, glorious food". 


Will finished up SHEP and his study of the Canadian fur trade and the Weather. He had projects for each and a test in each. We're very proud of how well he did! 


We celebrated American Thanksgiving pretty low key. Started the day watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade followed by our tradition of "The Muppet Christmas Carol".  Turkey late lunch while the Packer game played in the background and dessert spent at a friend's home who is also in a "mixed marriage" (Canadian/American) while their adorable kids ran around in pilgrim costumes! 


Hanging out with my "church ladies" at the Christmas wreath making workshop was a blast!

These great gals made the wreaths now hanging on the church doors. They're gorgeous!! (the wreaths and the ladies)

We gorged ourselves at lunch beforehand at 5 Guys Burger and Fries with too much burger and fries! Then off we went to be creative!

Not too shabby! Can't wait to do it again next year:)

It beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

As I write this, the snow is falling on ground that up until this point remained snowless. My snow village was put up last night with it's lights twinkling. A chicken carcass simmers on the stove for homemade chicken noodle soup for our lunch. And my wreath is on the door - a product of a church women's outing last weekend to a local tree farm.

I went with square this year instead of the usual round. I opted for dried hydrangea as opposed to a traditional bow. And I threw in a cute sparkly bird for good measure!