Preparing for Advent-Part One-The first Sunday.

I am really enjoying making our Advent plans...the time of preparing our hearts for the birth of Christ, & the longing for his return...

Before I go on to detail our plans, I would like to share with you this podcast from Molly Evert at her blog; counter cultural school
This is a 'must-listen' as far as I am concerned! Very inspiring & full of wisdom.
Preparing Hearts for Christmas

Advent this year will begin on Sunday the 30th of November.
The night before, I will have set up our Jesse Tree on our nature table. The table will have everything removed, & replaced with my ceramic Nativity scene. (minus the Kings, who make their way gradually to the table from my bedroom upstairs...it gets a bit precarious when they are slowly making their way down the staircase! LOL!-they finally arrive on Jan 6th-Epiphany. & of course Jesus is placed in the manger on Christmas morning)
The Jesse Tree will be next to the nativity scene. I am going to use a tree brach cut from the woods near our home. This will be sunk into some pebbles in a glass vase, to keep it nice & steady.
Here are the devotional readings I will be using, plus patterns to print out to make the ornaments. (I will be making as many as i can in felt, the rest, I will simply have the girls colour the paper patterns & keep adding my felt decorations year upon year.

We use an Advent Wreath, which we light before dinner each night during advent. We have a small family advent service each Sunday in advent. I will post the devotions we use for this at a later date.

We will be making a lovely Advent Star Crafts

Discussing our 'Secret Christmas Angels' Each one of us will have a secret partner - another member of the family that throught Advent, we will make a special effort to serve (secretly of course!) & do good deeds for. Our Angels will be revealed on Christmas Eve!

This ties in nicely with our Crib for Jesus We have a small crib for baby Jesus which will be under our Christmas tree. Each time one of the girls does a good or kind act, they can add a piece of straw to the crib to make it comfy for our Lord.

We will all begin our Advent Journals The girls get a fresh one each year, they decorate the cover with old Christmas cards. The girls books come from Myriad. I record any narrations they make, & they draw all their advent themed pictures & ideas in them.
My journal is one I made several years back. I record all sorts of random ideas, lists, thoughts etc, plus prayers & notes from my Bible reading during the Advent season. I have used several different devotionals previously, this is the one I will be using this year.

We will begin reading our Advent chapter book One Wintry Night


The girls will get to play with their own Nativity Set. This is put out on a table for them to enjoy throughout advent. (I must confess to playing with this also!)

And last but not least...we will have our Nativity cake...a dark chocolate bundt cake