Advent Begins!

At our house, the first Sunday in Advent means turning up the Christmas music, putting up the tree, and decorating the house! We pulled out the two big Rubbermaid containers of Christmas decorations, and I'm pretty sure Monkey and Bug thought it was Christmas morning already as they opened boxes and unwrapped decorations. In addition to the random Christmassy things, our decorations involve about a dozen Nativity sets, two of which are extremely kid-friendly and currently strewn about the living room. Obviously, we've been talking alot about THE Christmas story instead of Santa Claus now that baby Jesus keeps popping up everywhere at home. 

Monkey and Bug were incredibly excited about getting the tree up; Bug had been telling me for days that she "so, so, SO wanted to set up the Christmas tree." Instead of a traditional Chrismas tree, we do a Chrismon tree--all the ornaments are white and gold handmade Christian symbols. (Want to know more about Chrismons? Click here.) Of course, the entourage helped decorate the tree, which means most of our Chrismons are now at 3-year-old eye level.(Goose wanted in on the action too: We wouldn't let her touch the Chrismons, but she kept trying to hang her pacifier on the lower branches.) I try to add a Chrismon to the tree every year, and this is the first year that Monkey and Bug were capable of making their own Chrismons to add to the tree. I kept it super easy and understandable: I cut epiphany stars out of stiff white felt and let the girls paint them with gold glitter glue.

We actually don't have an Advent calendar going, much as I'd like to, because at this stage I think it'd be confusing: We're celebrating Christmas twice with different sets of family, and neither celebration is going to occur on Christmas day. We still have lots of fun Christmassy projects planned for this holiday season though!