One of the ways we prepare for our Savior's birth is by celebrating Advent, which began the Sunday after Thanksgiving this year. I made an advent wreath a couple of years ago, which we use as a centerpiece at our dinner table for the Christmas season. Each Sunday for 4 weeks leading up to Christmas we light a new candle (1. Prophecy, the Hope candle; 2. Bethlehem, the Peace candle; 3. God's love and faithfulness, the Love candle; 4. Angels proclaiming Christ's arrival, the Joy candle) until Christmas day when we light the center Christ candle. For each new candle that we lit, we'd read a message that explains the significance of that candle.
Another way we celebrated Advent was to give the kids a small gift for each day of December leading up to Christmas day. Stef let us borrow these adorable Advent bags which were perfect for holding two small gifts (one for each kiddo :) ...
We'd give them their 'surprises' each morning during breakfast after reading them a small portion of the Christmas story. I love this book I found from Costco. It was absolutely perfect for them because they were able to learn the whole Christmas story over the month of December without having too much information all at once. It's amazing how much they really understood and remembered; one evening we were driving past a large nativity scene in some one's yard and Tyce announces, 'King Herod is not nice. The shepherds are nice.' :)
We got our Christmas tree in early December:
The kids had a blast decorating the tree!
I LoVe how the bottom half of the tree is loaded with ornaments, multiple on one branch. They also really liked to put ornaments on the light strings instead of the branches, I think because they don't fall off as easily. No re-arranging ornaments in this house, their creativity/vision is perfect in our eyes! :)
We cut down these little Christmas trees when we were at Gramps and Oma's house. The kids got to decorate their own little Charlie Brown Christmas tree and put it in their bedroom :)
Decorating their first gingerbread house!
We're so grateful for our faith and the fact that the vast majority of the population celebrates Jesus' birth, whether or not they acknowledge it. It's profound, really, that even people who don't have a relationship with Christ celebrate HIS birthday. Our hope is that one day everyone can experience the love that Christ brought into this world and continues to bring to this world for all of us who have a relationship with Him. He loves ALL of us. Everyone. Including those who celebrate Jesus' birthday, Christmas, but not because of Him. We are all His children and the closest I think we can comprehend His love is when we think of the love we have for our own children. But, we know His love goes much beyond any love we have ever given. He created us and loves us for who we are. Always. We hope that one day everyone will experience His love because there is truly no other love like His...none that even compares.
