YAs current advent calendar (yes, she still gets an advent calendar even at the age of 30) is something I put together several years ago – decorated envelopes that are clipped onto greenery with cute teeny clothes hangers across the dining room windows. Gift cards and the kinds of sour candy that she likes.
As you know, that’s not the only advent fun we have around here – there are advent calendars of all kinds out there now, making it easy to indulge. You know I’m not doing the wine anymore and the shortbread bit the dust, the gingerbread was awful. The cat and the dog weren’t remotely interested in theirs. Even a high end chocolate one a few years ago wasn’t to our taste. But that doesn’t stop us from checking stuff out. This year we have:
- A small post-it sized pad of simple pictures that I can color.
- My color-by-number app has a different advent picture each day
- Advent jigsaw puzzle (small box of 42 pieces per day)
- Milk chocolate
- Cheese
As if we can’t throw ourselves into this kind of thing enough on our own, we have friends who are now abetting us. One friend sent me an online advent calendar by Jacquie Lawson (an online card creator). It is quite elaborate and fun. Another friend gave us a World of Chocolate (this is different from the little milk chocolate calendar I mentioned above). Neither YA nor I are big dark chocolate fans, so we’ll have to see how this plays out. The biggest surprise this year was a delivery from a couple we know of a Bonne Maman jams/jellies calendar. For the first day I took a picture (the header photo) and sent it to my friends. Wonderful.
So, yes, we’re a little crazy here but it’s a fun, low-key way to enjoy the season. And we’re pretty good at jettisoning the non-fun stuff if needed!
Do you celebrate the season? Tell me how!
Trail Baboon 
We celebrate Advent by preparing goodies for Christmas. Lefse is done, cookies come next, then stollen.
It may surprise people that Christmas songs and Carols aren’t technically supposed to be sung in church during Advent. We had a pastor at our Lutheran Church in ND who was a real stickler about that.
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In the church I pastored we did not sing carols in Advent. But we had a pot luck and craft making party in the Split Rick shelter where we sang carols. Then later in Advent we joined a church in town to sing carols at nursing homes.
Clyde
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I wonder why.
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The little group of Eclectic Strummers I play in is doing a short holiday concert today. It’s filled with Christmas carols and children’s Christmas songs such as “Here Comes Santa Claus.” There are only two songs in the entire hour that I can stand, which are “Bring a Torch Jeanette, Isabella,” and “I Want a Ukulele for Christmas.” I suggested other songs but got shut down because they are “not Christmas.” I then suggested calling it a Holiday concert rather than a Christmas concert and was again firmly put in my place. I still want to play music but I have more fun with more open-minded groups.
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Who decides these things and why does anyone adhere to them?
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The leader of the group is a man in his eighties who is a retired 3M engineer. He’s enjoying music in his later years but he’s not a musician and doesn’t really have a lot of observable talent for it. There is a lot of music he simply cannot play, and rather than admitting this and asking for support, he just stops some people from suggesting songs he can’t play. He has his favorite members in the group and I am at the very bottom of his list. He’s open to the men he invites over to his house to jam, and they help him learn songs which suddenly appear in the repertoire. He’s not open to suggestions from most of the women except one. I only stick with it because I am desperate to play some music! I no longer make suggestions.
Bob is stepping aside from leading the group so I’m not sure what will happen. One of his male friends will probably be the new leader, even though one of the women offered first.
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Funny that they style themselves eclectic.
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“Eclectic” due to the variety of instruments and the personalities.
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Can one be selectively eclectic?
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We tend to lump Advent and Christmas together, when, as far as the church is concerned, they are two very different church seasons with their own traditions and music.
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Ahh, I can see that.
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when i was a kids we would do the candles at dinner 3 pink ans a purple around a wreath that led to christmas and the advent catendar was a treat but i remember opening the first 24 days to get to the 25th when there was some celebratory something behind the 1”x1” window. maybe a quarter
nothing in my life as a recovering catholic. my kids have discovered religion elsewhere. we do the do unto others creedo and plug in adaptations as they arrive
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With our kids we had an Advent calendar and I made an Advent log, made out of a piece of birch which held the four candles, which Sandra would Sandra would decorate.
This year for Advent I have the apartment tastefully decorated with the washer/dryer sitting in the dining area and the furniture festooned with my clothes. A few boxes on the floor enhance the gaiety of the design.
Clyde
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Fun image. : )
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First thing is plugging in the Christmas lights strung in the front windows of the solarium (formerly a porch) – I never take them down, so they’re ready to go.
Cards on the mantle as they arrive – VS’s is one – I’ve saved all of them, and I pull out favorites from the collection.
Will bring up the little tabletop tree and clear a space for it in some corner. Also the box of Christmas books and music.
Christmas linens and candles – will go down and get the box this weekend – have some technical stuff I need to tie up (Open Enrollment for one) before I introduce anything else.
There are probably some things in there I’ve forgotten – if important, I’ll do an OT…
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I have received two cards so far. VS’s delightful one and one from a Christian/Persian (Muslim) couple. That may be the sum total.
Clyde
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I wasn’t raised in a religious family. We didn’t go to church anymore after I was about 11 years old. I really learned more about Advent reading the blog and comments above than I ever knew about it. All I really knew was it was the days in December leading up to Christmas. I knew there was some kind of door that was opened each day. So thanks for the lesson! I think I would actually like Advent, now that I know a tiny bit about it.
Today we are playing two hour-long concerts. One at FiftyNorth, the other at Northfield Retirement Center. I have been dreading this day. I really don’t like the music we’re playing. I play recorder on “Bring a Torch, Jeanette, Isabella.” I can tell you a little about that carol. It was written as a dance song for nobility in the late 17th century, translated from French to English, then changed to a Christmas carol. It is actually about someone calling to two milkmaids, Jeanette and Isabella, to bring a torch to see the infant Jesus in a manger. I hadn’t know that. I thought it was one woman named Jeanette Isabella. I do like the song and I like the recorder solo in it because it’s appropriate to the period.
I can actually type and use my iPad right now because my little terrorist is sleeping after her breakfast, her trip outside, and playing with everything she sees. Otherwise I am hardly able to read, and knitting is out of the question for the time being. She’s really a cutie, but in the naughtiest of naughty stages! She’s keeping me busy.
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Little Terrorist is pretty accurate for puppy names. My guy is now a bit past the terrorist stage and is now paper trained in the house. We are starting on outdoor potty training now. He loves the snow, so every trip out is play time. He gets snow on his muzzle which is endearingly cute. He is, however, trying to chew on my leather recliner so when I cannot supervise him he is on the porch. I sent Krista a picture of McGee “helping” me knit. To do what I wanted to do, I gave him an almost used up ball of yarn that he has been playing with for days now.
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That photo is very cute! Maggie is the opposite about the snow. She won’t even walk out there! I think she’s cold, even though I bought her a warm coat. We’ll get through this. She went to the vet yesterday and I took a sample in. It tested positive for Giardia. That explains a lot. I hope to get some meds for her tomorrow.
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what do you mean stage? thats who the dog is
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The puppy stage of the Terrible Twos.
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Oh, and there are the porch plaques, a door mat…
And I hang the Shiny Brite balls on anything where a hook will attach – since the tree is so small they don’t fit there. Some on my Peace sign (that stays up all year), from lamp shades, etc.
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Aside from the tree, we don’t decorate much. I will get the tomte, German pyramid candles, and juhlbukke out one of these days, and that is about it
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I put up the tree on Thanksgiving Day, but Maggie is overly interested in it so I am going to take it down. I won’t even be here for much of this month, so there’s really no point. I do like seeing my decorations every year because they’re from my family.
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Are you going to your “cabin”? (she asked nosily)
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Yes. I’m supposed to be up there Friday night until the following Friday morning. I might wait until Saturday. I’ve been so busy and I need to prioritize Maggie’s needs.
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When Tristan was a puppy during his first holiday season, he was also interested in the tree. I got a bunch of boxes from work – the kind that reams of paper come in, and I wrapped them all up with wrapping paper from the dollar store. Put a brick in the bottom of each one and set them all around the perimeter of the tree as a barrier. He could jump up on the boxes with his front paws, but he couldn’t get past the boxes so couldn’t really get to the tree. It worked fabulously. The following year he was too grown-up for such silliness.
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Great idea!
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Rise and Shine, Baboons,
Christmas is not my holiday for many reasons. While I do celebrate it, mostly I like to just get it over with. I found that making a delicious brunch, then going to movies at a theater, then coming home and watching more movies via streaming is really a fun, special day.
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You all know my dislike of Christmas music.
Love the time with family and friends.
And I miss the holiday treats one of the families used to do on the 24th.
Mom always had nativity sets and I enjoyed setting them up. We just don’t.
Maybe we’ll get a tree this weekend.
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I have written songs every day, based on the lectionary Readings “from the King to the Kings” (Reign of Christ through Epiphany) and put them into a WordPress blog, scheduled daily (5AM CST) to appear in your inbox, if you’ll only bother to subscribe. When a week didn’t have enough assigned readings, I went to another lectionary to fill things out, including a risque` one from Ruth 3. I’ve been doing this for 3 years now, so when you get to the one that comes up today, scroll backwards for previous years’ of seasonal song.
http://www.adventinsong.wordpress.com
Welcome to join the small, elite, group of subscribers.
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I subscribed for a long while, David, and I appreciate your steadfastness. I dropped it a few months ago when I was trying to reduce the amount of stuff that arrived daily in my inbox, and I realized that it wasn’t really the kind of music that spoke to me.
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I’m the same – I just can’t have another think in my inbox, overwhelmed with emails on many days. If that changes in the new year, will let you know.
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Thanks for giving it a thought, but “in the new Year” it will be gone. The adventinsong thing disappears on January 6.
However, http://www.aboksu.wordpress.com just goes on and on, a song a day. It’s stocked up until November 30, and the newly minted ones I’m doing now are already stocked up (though not posted) in sufficient quantity to last into February of 2027.
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Back to my special decorations. Kevin was here early and got done in the closet. I got my clothes and boxes back in there. He was close to ready to put the washer/dryer back in its room. The properties manager called and told him he had to put all the outdoor furniture in storage from three properties. Kevin told him what he was doing. The manager said that’s not important. Go take care of the furniture.
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Grrrrrrrr
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For the past couple of weeks, my three large Christmas cacti have been blooming profusely. They are truly stunning. Also, our place mats and napkins are Christmassy. That’s about the extent of it this year, just too fatigued to do anything else.
For most of my adult life I have made quite the fuss about Christmas in a quiet, warm, and peaceful way. Strings of light strung in a ficus tree, candles on decorated wreaths of fragrant fir or spruce. A few oranges pierced with cloves in a ceramic bowl with an assortment of nuts; shiny red glass spheres suspended in front of the windows from invisible fishing lines, and a couple of old, tattered julebukke. Those I’d gussy up with a red satin ribbon and perhaps as sprig of holly. I’d put up a fresh balsam fir on December 23rd, and spend the evening decorating it with my beloved ornaments, most of which have a specific memory, time, person or place attached to it.
The decorating of the tree was really a sacred time to me, a time to reminisce about all of the Christmases past and the people I shared them with. They were not all happy, and some were painful and sad, but such is life. We muddle through as best we can. I have collected enough good memories to sustain me through to the end, I hope.
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I used to do a holiday Open House every December for about 18 years until 2007 – I fractured my left wrist in November of that year and couldn’t do all the food prep so It was canceled and has not happened since then. A lot of people had conflicts with other seasonal events so I had no trouble letting it go. My decorating is pretty minimal since almost no one but me sees it. I put out holiday linens, some small decorations/ornaments, and lights on a couple of windows. I haven’t put up a tree or done cookie baking since the Open House ended. I celebrate Christmas with my only immediate family still here in MN – my younger sister and her family. Her husband is dealing with serious medical issues so this year Christmas will be subdued.
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One of our Christmas traditions was to invite people to Eve or Day. People who lived alone or who could not get back to their family and the like.
Clyde
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Even though my family is Catholic, I didn’t really start observing Advent until I was older. I started buying Advent calendars from Logos bookstore in Dinkytown when I was in college. Nothing fancy, just windows with pictures and sometimes Bible verses. It’s hard to find them now, so I get them online from a company that makes them in Germany. Still no chocolate or treats, just pictures. Our version of YA opens the windows.
I picked up other Advent traditions from reading. I have an Advent arrangement with a wreath and four crystal star candleholders. It’s not set up this year because of the new kitty. When the kids were little, I put baby Jesus from the nativity scene in the middle of the advent wreath. So all the other figures were sitting there staring at an empty space, waiting. On Christmas Eve, one of the kids would place Jesus in the stable.
I’m kind of traditional about Christmas, so no tree or decorations yet, just outdoor lights to brighten up the winter gloom. I’m dreading putting up the tree because of kitty, who climbs every vertical surface in the house. Probably just lights and no ornaments this year.
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I have the same Bonne Maman that’s in the header photo. I bought a julekage to enjoy the little jellies on. I know I won’t finish all the little jars before Christmas, though. I’m already behind.
I also have an advent calendar that I fill with Riesen’s dark chocolate caramels. That one I can keep up with.
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