Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Advent in the Little Things

I just posted this on the Catholic Dads blog:

A few years ago, Jocelyn and I started making a conscious effort during Advent to celebrate it in such a way as to distinguish it from Christmas. (We had always had an Advent wreath, but we were looking for more.)

While I admit we have a long way to go in making this distinction at Haus Jansen, one of our family's now beloved customs—courtesy of a suggestion from some friends of ours—is to adorn our Christmas tree during Advent with purple and pink ornaments exclusively. Come Christmas Eve, we take them down, and only then do we put up our regular ornaments.

And because they get to decorate the tree twice, our kids have come to love this custom we have in our home every year that begins during "pink and purple time", as our five-year old daughter Teresa put it the other day.

We're always open to suggestions, so I'd be curious to hear about any of the ways other families commemorate Advent.

2 comments:

Dixi said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Dixi said...

Happy Advent!

My family does the advent calender as well as the Jessee Tree.

I have one suggestion -it was my friend's tradition. She would display an empty manger and prepare it for Jesus by placing a piece of straw (or yarn) in it every time she did a gracious deed.

Have fun!