The tradition that John and I both brought with us from our families when we married is the Advent wreath. From the first year we were married, we have always had some sort of Advent wreath on our table during this season. Yesterday, we fixed up our Advent wreath at a parish workshop just in time for tonight's dinner celebration.
A family tradition that began when Tommy was small is to have an Advent calendar to help mark the time until the Feast of Christmas. We have a surfeit of Advent calendars. They are fun, though. I don't think anyone minds having three doors to open each day. The kids take turns opening the doors. They cycle through the days: from youngest to oldest this year so that Patrick will have his turn on the 20th, his 16th birthday.
Our first permanent Advent calendar was made by my youngest brother's class as a project for a craft auction/fundraiser for his Catholic middle school. I think all the parents made the ornaments. My parents gave it to us when Tommy and Patrick were small. The big boys never let me skip using this one--it's their tradition now--and I hung it in the hall outside their bedroom.
We placed our wood and magnetic Advent calendar (a gift from my parents several years ago, and my favorite) on the altar this year and the wreath in the center of the dining table.
A couple of weeks ago friends who live in Germany sent us this calendar:
It has a piece of chocolate inside each door. Yummy! This one is in the kitchen. So it's Advent all around the house.
On Saturday, Katie, Joseph, and I put away our fall table decorations and put the Advent table together. In each house, we seem to have found a different location for this table. Here, the seasonal table is in our entryway. It's the top of our shoe cabinets, so we see it many times a day as we come and go. I like the idea that it reminds us of the season as soon as we enter the house and again before we leave.
On top of the table are our Jesse tree and two smaller trees. I like to do things in threes as a reminder of the Trinity. During Advent, we usually don't decorate the smaller trees, but last year, Katie made some origami butterflies for the smallest tree, and she put them on right away this year.
We learned about the Jesse tree at our parish in Yakima and found a partial set of ornaments made of brass at the Seattle Catholic homeschool conference a few years ago. Each year, we make a couple new ornaments so that we will eventually have a complete set.
The ornaments symbolize different people in the story of salvation. It begins on the first Sunday of Advent with the tree itself, with the story of the anointing of Jesse's son, David, in the first book of Samuel (16:1-13) and the "a shoot shall grow from the root of Jesse" verses in Isaiah (11:1-10). The next night, we read about creation, with a dove as its symbol. Then the fall, with an apple and a snake. It continues with symbols like an ark for Noah, a trumpet for Gideon, wheat stalks for Ruth. We cover all of Jesus' family tree and a few others, like Moses, before we get to the end, with Bethlehem and the star. John and I hope that by the time the kids grow up, salvation history will be the most familiar of Christmas stories to them.
The ornaments for the Jesse tree are in a basket on our home altar in the dining room. That way, they are handy for carrying to the tree in the front hall after the verses are read at dinner each evening.
We enjoy celebrating the Saints of Advent during this season, too. Next week, December 13th, Katie's doll, Kirsten, will join us dressed in her Scandanavian St. Lucia costume. Katie already has her all ready to go. (Thanks to Grandmom for the beautiful, heirloom-sewn gown.)
Already on the Advent table is a statue of our beloved St. Nicholas, the protector of children, and patron of our miscarried little one, our Nicholas, who is with God. St. Nicholas always appears in the week of his feast day, December 6th.
We hung the St. Nicholas kilim from Turkey near the school table. He is carrying toys and the Christmas tree in this one, but his hat looks a bit like a miter, and surely that's a red soutane and cincture he's wearing. ;-)
In the center of the Advent table is an empty manger awaiting the Christ Child statue on Christmas morning. The children will fill it with a few pieces of hay each time they do a good deed during Advent. Since they are working hard to prepare their hearts for his arrival, Baby Jesus should have a nice, soft bed by Christmas morning.
Sometime this week, we will get the stable and nativity figures out: when John has time to climb up into the loft in the garage and retrieve them. I wasn't brave enough for that one this weekend. They will go in the living room/school room. As Advent progresses, the children usually add a figure each day or so to the nativity scene until the 3 kings arrive on the Feast of Epiphany. Usually, the kings move about the room to various shelves and tabletops throughout the Advent/Christmas season. They did have a long journey, after all. ;-)
The only unusual thing is that this year, the baby Jesus statues will have to appear while we are away on our vacation. I'll have to figure out how to work that one out. I do want the children to find them there when we arrive home. When Christmas morning comes, their first look the past few years has always been for the Baby Jesus in the manger that they have been preparing for him on the seasonal table. I suspect they will look for him when they come back in from our trip, too, even though it will be New Year's Day.
It all looks a bit bare and unfinished at this point, but that is the point. We are waiting. We are preparing our home and our hearts.
P.S. Note the Easter candle still on the altar--we are still working on our Christ candle. Preparation, remember (I have to remind myself, too :-)) It's the candle we're making each day during the novena before the Immaculate Conception. When it's made, we'll put it in the place of the Easter candle and cover it with a special cloth until Christmas, just as Jesus was hidden in Mary's womb until his birth. Then we will move it into the center of the (former) Advent wreath that will have gold bows and white candles instead of purple and pink. There it will burn brightly throughout the Christmas season.
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