A New Way to Do Advent

Posted on December 17, 2018 by Amy

Every year since I have been an adult with a home of my own (20 years), I have put up and decorated my Christmas tree on the day after Thanksgiving. I did it when I lived alone, and it became a tradition in our family. I have always rejected getting Christmassy in any way before Thanksgiving, but the day after? We blare the Christmas music, get out alllll the decorations, and go nuts. And then I take the tree down by New Year’s, because by then I’m sick to death of it and can’t wait to have my house back to normal.

^Photos taken on November 29, 2013^

A few years ago, I began learning more about the season of Advent, and how it is meant to be more of a season of waiting and anticipation and not a time for celebrating Christmas yet. Christmas is about the birth of Jesus, and Jesus wasn’t born the fourth Friday in November, amiright? I started feeling a yearning to resist putting up the tree right away. To not blare the Christmas music for the entire month of December. To focus more on the waiting for the Savior instead of on the hustle and bustle of the world at this time of year. And then starting Christmas celebrations on Christmas and keeping them going through Epiphany.

I have wanted to do this for the past few years, but I always chickened out. Or I caved to the pressure. Or I was too mentally lazy to figure out how to do it differently. Or some combination of all of these. I was worried how my kids would react if I changed a bunch of our holiday traditions around.

So instead, I added other things. The Advent wreath. The Jesse Tree. The empty manger with pieces of straw for the girls to add for good deeds/sacrifices to pad it for the Baby Jesus. We kept Baby Jesus out of all of our nativities until Christmas morning.

Last year I made a point of trying to extend out celebration of Christmas, by keeping the tree up through the twelve days of Christmas. And I had gifts wrapped for my girls to open for each of the twelve days (one family game for each day).

But even though we’ve added in these Advent activities and I’ve tried to extend the Christmas celebration beyond Christmas Day, we have always still put up our tree and started celebrating Christmas right after Thanksgiving.

Except this year, we didn’t.

This year, I decided we were going try hard to keep Advent focused on waiting, and then to celebrate Christmas really big and for the entirety of the season. We didn’t put up the tree the day after Thanksgiving. We are making a game of not singing Christmas music. I’m trying to start new traditions by putting more emphasis on the wonderful feasts that occur during Advent.

The girls were a little disappointed to have to wait to put up our tree, but overall, they have really taken to the new way of doing things without much resistance. We’ve kept lots of our previous traditions, like doing our Jesse Tree reading, saying prayers, and reading books around our Advent Wreath each night. We still open a book each evening to read together (most old, but a few new). And I think it helps that we’ve added in plenty of other ways of celebrating.

We had a “New Year’s Eve” party on the night before the start of Advent.

We drew names on the first day of Advent for each of us to have a Christkindl throughout the season (someone to do special, secret things for each day). We celebrated St. Nicholas Day as usual with putting our shoes out, but then also added making special Speculatius cookies for the feast.

And we went to a fun St. Nicholas party at our parish.

We had a big feast of all white food (including our dessert) for the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception.

We had a big St. Lucy Day celebration/procession this year for that feast.

I briefly entertained the idea of making Lussekatter, or St. Lucia saffron buns, for the occasion, and then decided that there was no need to go overboard. Cinnamon rolls shaped like an “S” were a fine substitute.

Then yesterday, on “the pink Sunday” we finally put up our tree.

The third Sunday of Advent, for those of you who aren’t familiar, is called “Gaudete Sunday.” “Gaudete” means “rejoice” in Latin. It is a special day in the midst of the waiting season of Advent to rejoice, because the big event, the birth of our Lord, is almost here. The liturgical color for this day is rose, which is why it’s sometimes called the pink Sunday.

I thought about waiting until Christmas Eve to put up the tree. I know some people who do this. But I figured I would try baby steps this year and just wait until Gaudete Sunday, but not turn on the lights on the tree until we get up to go to Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve.

The girls were so excited to put up the tree and even listen to Christmas music for one day while we did!

We will put up the rest of the decorations gradually this week and I’m going to try to leave them up until Candlemas (we’ll see how that goes).

I have really felt a difference this Advent. It feels more meaningful. I think we have been able to focus more on the important things. It has been a little hard, but I can honestly feel the anticipation and excitement building. Now I just hope we will be able to keep up our celebration of Christmas all the way through Epiphany and beyond, when the rest of the world is done on December 26th!

I hope you are having a wonderful Advent season. Christmas is almost here. Gaudete!!

Trying on Some New Traditions, Also Known As Liturgical Baby Steps

Posted on December 10, 2015December 10, 2015 by Amy

I love this time of year.

I always have, but since becoming Catholic, it’s even more wonderful. It’s become more packed with meaning and different ways to celebrate. I’m a lover of tradition, and we’ve begun bringing in some new traditions to our family to celebrate many of the feast days that are so abundant during Advent.

There are some old traditions that I haven’t let go of, even though many will say that a true observance of Advent means that we should. We still put up our Christmas tree and decorate it fully on the day after Thanksgiving.

Since becoming Catholic, I’ve discovered that lot of people don’t decorate their Christmas tree or do much, if any, actual Christmas celebrating until Christmas day, and then they celebrate for the 12 days after Christmas. I think that’s fantastic, but I haven’t been able to bring myself to implement that in my family, and I don’t think I really even want to.

I think that’s okay.

I do try to emphasize the waiting aspect of Advent with my kids. We have an Advent Wreath. We do a Jesse Tree, thanks to Kendra and these ornaments (I did a version of Method B, printed the images provided onto printable and ironable fabric, and then ironed them onto felt – no sewing!). We open different Christmas books during each day of Advent, that I’ve wrapped in purple or pink paper, depending on the week. We put out our shoes for the feast of St. Nicholas.

These are things that I’ve gradually added in. This is only my third religious Christmas, so I’m trying to take baby steps. I’m learning what works for us and what doesn’t. I can do an Advent wreath. I can do a Jesse tree. I can’t not decorate my Christmas tree right after Thanksgiving. It’s a family tradition that I love too much. Maybe some year, we’ll decide to move back the day we do it, but that’s not this year.

This year I’m trying to add in a few new traditions. Tuesday was the Feast (or Solemnity??) of the Immaculate Conception. The girls enjoyed providing a little bit of decoration by rounding up all the Mary statues and holy cards from around the house.

Front and center was Miss’s Immaculate Conception peg doll that she specifically requested for her birthday a couple of years ago. She was pretty excited to put that out there.

I decided to implement a new Immaculate Conception tradition of eating an all-white dinner, since the Immaculate Conception emphasizes Mary’s purity and preservation from sin. White = pure… so, dinner:

This dinner was a last minute decision, so I chose things that I could make with minimal effort. Cheese ravioli in butter, roasted cauliflower, and poached fish. The result was okay. The fish was supposed to be halibut poached in olive oil, but I couldn’t get halibut at my grocery store so I had to settle for cod. Then I burned the heck out of my olive oil and had to start over again with vegetable oil. Cod poached in vegetable oil. It was about as tasty as it sounds. BUT, the rest of the food was good and the girls really got into the reason we were eating white food, which is the whole point, obviously. And of course we had vanilla ice cream topped with white chocolate chips afterward. Over all, I’d say this is a tradition we can continue. Next year I’ll plan ahead a bit and chose a better recipe for white food though.

Yesterday we celebrated St. Juan Diego’s feast day. This one was pretty easy to do, because our parish had a “Mary Party,” with our associate pastor in attendance as Juan Diego himself.

The kids played games and made a craft and they absolutely loved it.

Saturday is the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. I’m making quesadillas for dinner, and maybe we’ll do some sort of craft. We’ll read a book about her that the girls will open that morning.

Sunday is St. Lucy’s feast day. This one always seems like it has so much potential for fun celebrating, but I just can’t bring myself to make saffron buns from scratch. Maybe I’ll try at least making cinnamon rolls the way Lacy suggests in this post as something different and special to mark the day. I can probably even manage to craft St. Lucy crowns with my girls or something.

You can see I really plan this stuff in advance.

I think the point for me is that I’m trying to gradually add in more activities that acknowledge the beauty of all our Church has for us to celebrate this season, hoping that these things will become traditions for us and that my girls will look forward to them each year. I try to do this all year long, but this season is special because there’s so much potential.

If we don’t make funny-shaped cinnamon rolls or paper candle crowns on Sunday, I’m not going to beat myself up. We have a book about St. Lucy and I’ll print out a coloring page and call it good. I don’t want observance and celebration of the liturgical stuff to be stressful for me or for them.

Baby steps, right?

Seasonal Successes (and failures)

Posted on December 10, 2014December 14, 2014 by Amy

I love this time of year.

Last year was my first time in a long time of celebrating Christmas as a religious holiday rather than just a secular one. I tried to add in all the Catholic things (Advent wreath, Jesse tree, St. Nicholas day and other feast days, etc) while keeping everything we had been doing before (visiting Santa, baking Christmas cookies, our Advent calendar experiences, etc). I ended up feeling a little overwhelmed, but we had a fun time anyway. I enjoyed learning about and beginning some new traditions.

This year, I am feeling utterly overwhelmed by it all. I don’t know why exactly. Maybe it’s because we’re doing real homeschooling (beyond preschool), part-time Catholic school, and have just gotten two puppies. Maybe it’s because we are going to be traveling for the week of Christmas, so I have had to ship almost all of our gifts to my parent’s house and have less time to get everything done before we leave. I don’t know what my problem is. But I’ve decided that I just have to let some things go if I want to maintain my sanity and keep focused on what is really important about Christmas.

One example of letting things go: From the moment we got our decorations out, I decided the Advent calendar of years past, with a different fun experience for each day, was going to have to bite the dust. I hung it up. I just didn’t do anything else with it (I didn’t even take out the cards from last year!).

I just can’t do that one anymore.

I have had some nice successes in my efforts at seasonal celebrating and observances. And also some plans that seemed fabulous in my head and then were just big flops. For example:

*I made some lovely new ornaments for our Jesse Tree and ordered a book to go with them (courtesy of Kendra, how awesome is she to share?). I also got the DVD from Holy Heroes with cute little videos for each day with the readings. Unfortunately, we haven’t actually done the readings (or watched the video segment) since day 5 (5 days ago).

*I made it to Mass with my children for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception on Monday. I set Miss’s Immaculate Conception Saint Anne doll on the counter in place of honor and talked to the girls about the meaning of the Immaculate Conception (Mary’s conception, not Jesus’s).

Unfortunately, I didn’t manage to do any other activities I had planned to commemorate the day. No special dinner. No dessert. I didn’t even get around to giving them the coloring page I have had ready to go in our liturgical year binder for months.

*I wrapped Christmas books for each day of Advent, in purple and pink to go with each week. We have kept up with the daily opening of the books, but we haven’t done a great job of keeping up with the reading of them. Which kind of misses the point, right? Geez.

*I rocked St. Nicholas’s feast day. The girls put their shoes on the hearth and they each got a couple of these adorable little saint dolls, some chocolate coins, a Veggie Tales Christmas DVD, and a Twilight Turtle (they have always loved their cousins’ turtles, and I got them on sale from Zulily).

St. Nicholas left a note explaining that he hopes the stars/light from the turtles will remind the girls of how God created the heavens and earth and stars and sun and everything else, and also of how Jesus’s light is always with them. Huge. Hit. We watched DVDs about Saint Nicholas and read books about him. Unfortunately, I forgot that I had some new play nativities for the girls I had planned to leave as Saint Nicholas gifts as well. They’re still sitting in my basement.

*I took the big girls to see The Nutcracker. It was a special date they have been looking forward to. They loved the Nutcracker stories we read last year and our trip to the local art museum that has a beautiful Nutcracker display throughout. It really was fun, though a touch long for them.

Unfortunately, though I had purchased a new Nutcracker book for them this year, we didn’t manage to read it before going to the ballet, so the girls kept asking, “Who is that? What’s happening now?” because the whole story wasn’t fresh in their minds (nor in mine).

They still loved it, and have been playing “Nutcracker” ever since. With costumes even. Lass is usually Clara or the Sugar Plum Fairy. Miss is usually the Nutcracker:

In addition to all the above partial successes, I have also managed to get most of my shopping done, to make a couple of Christmas crafts with the girls, and to remember to move our elf every night (except for that one time when Lass came down early and said, “Hey! He’s still in that same spot!” and I convinced her that she had just woken up too early and needed to go back to bed for a little while to give him time to decide where to go).

See? Lots of successes.

I tend to have big ideas about all the amazing things I want to do with my kids at this time of year. Then reality comes calling and I have to make adjustments. Instead of fretting about not doing enough, I’m working on just being happy with where we are. I could get caught up in doing activities and crafting and baking and going here and there to see and do, but then I would be missing the whole point. I spent ten years missing the whole point, so I don’t want to do that anymore.

We will probably catch up on our Jesse Tree readings/ornaments tomorrow morning. I’ll make more of a point to read the Christmas books we open each day and the ones we missed. We’ll go see Santa, and go to the Nutcracker display at the museum, and bake cookies, and make more crafts, and observe the feast days of Our Lady of Guadalupe and Saint Lucy. And if we miss something, it will be fine. Because we won’t miss celebrating Jesus’s birth most of all.

Remembering the whole point of it all has been one of my very favorite successes.

A Thanksgiving Recap and Advent Intro

Posted on December 1, 2014 by Amy

Thanksgiving was amazing. It really was. We invited our dear friends to join us for dinner. I spent all day cooking. The girls helped me. They made decorations, which we promptly forgot to move into the kitchen/table area.

Good food. Great friends. Memories made.

It is truly a blessing when friends are like family.

As I always do, I resisted focusing on Christmas until Thanksgiving was over. I think Thanksgiving is important, and I like to let it have its day.

But come Friday, I’m ready to move on. I love our tradition of decorating the Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving.

We’re singing Christmas carols and setting up nativities and trying to get a photo for the Christmas card.

And we’re getting into our Advent focus. I’m really relieved by how much easier Advent is this year. Everything just feels less confusing and overwhelming. I mostly understand what to do with my Advent wreath/candles. I have a decent grasp of what the Jesse tree is all about. This year I don’t need to look up words like “Annunciation,” and “Immanuel,” and “Epiphany,” and I’m confident in my ability to tell the Christmas story to my kids. In fact, they can tell it themselves just as well, which makes me very happy.

Though we’re still doing lots of Christmas-y things, I’m trying hard to keep a good focus on the purpose of Advent too – prayerfully anticipating.

I have so much to be thankful for. And so much to look forward to.