Advent Decor and Activities

The tree looks amazing all decorated and trimmed.  I was so worried about Bobby pulling it over on himself, but he hasn't touched it.  He loves to look at the ornaments when his sisters hold him up high, finding the horses and neighing or the trucks and making vroom vroom sounds.  I had to have gates up and couches moved for Isaac and Drew to keep them away from the tree, but this guy is not into causing that kind of trouble.  He has his own issues, but getting into stuff isn't one of his things.  God bless him!

We have been so blessed by this giant tree.  It has brought us all into the spirit of Advent.  Decorating it was a fun time for the kids and I.  I had to put Judah and Drew to bed in the middle of it before too many of the nice breakable ornaments came out.

The Advent calendars, my Aunt Cindy got the three oldest these Advent calendars the Christmas right before she passed away.  Drew was only a baby then, so he didn't get one.  I have been searching everywhere for them to get for the youngest three kids, but I haven't found them yet.  Drew and Judah just had store bought Advent calendars which did not seem to bother them in the least.  The one pictured is Isaac's train, but the girls have matching gingerbread house ones.

I should have taken a better picture of my O Antiphons.  I have wanted to make these from Waltzing Matilda's blog forever, but have been pregnant or had an infant every Christmas and couldn't muster the energy.  This time I almost said, "Next year" again, but I decided tat it would never get done if I didn't do it now.  I bought seven boxes of Altoids and printed off her pictures and prayers at the beginning of Advent.  I felt like I was on on a roll and doing well.  Then time passed very quickly and suddenly I had just a few days to get them made.  I had planned to have the girls color them and tape them on.  I figured the backs wouldn't quite be completed this year, but I am trying to let go of my perfectionism and just do it anyway.  I was going to do this one way or another.

 I couldn't find the print outs anywhere.  I searched the house four times over.  I have no idea what I did with them when we did our big cleaning right before decorating the tree.  Here's the bigger problem, our internet was having trouble only on the desktop which is connected to our printer.  I sent them to Brian to see if he could print them at work, but that wouldn't work either.  Crunch time was nearly over and the very next day was the beginning of the O Antiphons.  I had to draw the pictures and have Brian print out different prayers that were not already sized perfectly to the Altoid tins.  I wrote the "O" and the fancy lettered name of each Antiphon for the front cover.  They look like they were printed unless you look closely, but they took a lot more of my time than they were supposed to.

Nativity scene taking over the altar, I had lots of trimmings from the tree to decorate with and I LOVE the way it made Mary stand out better in her niche.

Our Jesse Tree in progress

We used our hand-made set of Jesse Tree ornaments and used Geraldine McCaughrean's Jesse Tree story.  The little boys picked out a different Christmas book every day.  We have accrued quite a collection over the last few years.

The stockings were all hung on the window with care...because that's the only place I had room for them all.

We keep them hanging all Advent and Christmas even after St. Nicholas Day because I worked so hard on them that I like to see them as long as possible.