It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas!

All the Advent calendars are out and ready to coutdown the days until Christmas!

Our Nativity countdown calendar.

Our Hallmark Christmas Tree countdown calendar.

A new addition this year...  A felt Advent banner with Advent candles to "light".

Our Advent candles.  This is our third year having Advent Candles. I buy simple white candles and tie purple and pink robbons around them.  So much easier than trying to find purple and pink candles!

The Jesse Tree.  Our second year doing this.  It's a small tree that we will hang handmade ornaments on.  The ornaments are based on stories from scripture of the lineage and life of Jesus.  The first ornament is about how God made the world... then, Adam and Eve, Noah's Ark, Abraham... etc.  The kids love it!

A bed for baby Jesus...  For each "sacrifice" or "good deed" that the kids do, they get to put a piece of wool yarn in Baby Jesus' basket.  The goal is to fill it with lots of strings to make a soft bed for Him to lay on on Christmas Eve.

Angels and a paper chain.

Paper chain decorations on the stairs!

I have worked really hard this year to get a lot of the christma prep done BEFORE Thanksgiving...so we can really enjoy Christmas as a family this year.  I surprised myself when I remembered to get our Christmas CDs in the car the day after Thanksgiving...  And the Advent calendars were all out the day before Advent started.  (Well, all except one...  But we'll just have to play "catch-up" with that one!)  I am looking forward to making chex mix and decorating cookies...  And also putting up our Christmas tree!  (We never put it up early... I can't imagine having it up the day after Thanksgiving.  I like to wait a little longer.  This year we are going to put it up the weekend of the 18th.)

I hope everyone has time this year to enjoy some Christmas traditions with their families!!