Advent Link-up

Today I'm joining in with Like Mother Like Daughter and sharing where we're at for Advent around our house.

For the record I LOVE Advent!  Maybe it's something about loving babies, and their arrivals?  Those precious, precious days of new birth...and of course, This Birth is infinitely precious, perfect, Divine.

Don't judge me if I seem to be going overboard.:)  Here we go!

I popped my nativity scenes, sans baby Jesus, up on my mantles (I have two. My fireplace is double-sided).  This one is from my Mother-in-Law (we've gone through a Jim Shore phase in our relationship):

Yes, St. Joseph is missing a hand, and the donkey's ears and tail are glued on...and the shepherd lost his crook, and hand... Let's call it a much-loved set.:)

And this set is from my sister-in-law:

My very favorite piece--the donkey!

I always wonder if I should nix the trees...???  Anyway, it's beautiful.  And yes, like the above set, just about every figure is broken.  I did consider that the Stations of the Cross (that I hung last Lent, seen under the mantle) might be unseasonal and finally need to come down.  But upon contemplating the scene from my couch, I have found the juxtaposition of Jesus' begining and fulfullment of his mission as our Savior to be a beautiful and rich source of meditation: the Stations stay!:)

I picked up a little 3-foot tree this year to hang our Jesse Tree ornaments on.

  Unfortunately, I'm not finding a picture of the tree...hmmm...well, imagine a three-foot tree.  Earlier this week I did a little ornament making project with the kids.  Just cut out felt shapes, decorated with glitter glue, stuffed with cotton balls, and sewed with embroidery floss:

 You can't go wrong, they all turn out darling!  I think it's the glitter...
We don't have our tree yet, so the kids hung them up with the Jesse tree ornaments on the little 3-footer:

 This one is Bilbo's manger (drying):

 Moving on, I pulled our Christmas books and have been making myself feel like a very good Mom by reading through them with the kids, a few each day.  (This is the result of many years of purchasing!  Remember, I have 8 children and I've been home schooling since my 14 year old daugher was 3!)

I have this Jesse Tree up...but only this (lame) picture of it.  It's just a paper kit, but I laminate it and my last one lasted for 5 years.   We re-did it this year.

 Our felt Advent calendar:

Cutest little figures, but they do hang, sort of...off...as the velcro isn't perfect.

And, I've got this wooden one: 

Last and maybe least, I surprised my kids this year with a playmobile Advent "calendar."  A new toy a day until the scene is complete on Christmas.  Totally secular, but they're having a lot of fun with it.:)

 

Oh! And of course we have an Advent Wreath!! Of course, I have no picture of it.  Anyway, just know that all of the above, which added up is a lot, was collected over a decade and a half of marriage.  Now I just pull it up in a box from the basement.  Looks good on a blog, but not really as impressive as all that...not that it doesn't set the mood for the kids to get ready for Christmas!

And yes, it's all about the waiting!  The preparation of our hearts for Jesus.  Anyway, that's about it for us:).  Thanks for dropping by!