It's Advent time!

This year’s Advent calender

We have the harshest overhead lighting in our living room *sigh*

Pictures are really dominating this post today so I will try to keep my words short. Today was the first Sunday of Advent but the whole weekend was in the Advent spirit. Saturday was our school’s annual Heart of Advent event organized by my very talented friend. This is the one day of the year that I get out of the house by myself. I had less than two hours this time, thanks to Kevin’s boss making him work this weekend, so I spent more time crafting than I did taking pictures. I was thrilled to be able to catch up with one of my most favorite people in the world, and to even hear some sweet words about how my K is in class (I suppose I should make it less confusing here and say I was chatting with the wife of K’s teacher). What a rejuvenating and treasured tradition this event is.

After Mass today was the Advent fair where we made our Advent wreath minus some holly that we  will gather from our woods this week. Once we were back at home we rolled our beeswax candles and brought out just a few Advent decorations to place around the house. We slowly add things to build the joyful anticipation. (You can read a bit more about our Advent celebrations here and here.  I have individual posts about each light of Advent, too.) C watched and listened to our preparations from her cozy place on the couch. She has had a little tummy ache the past few days and is too wiped out to do much, poor thing.

I went to hang up our wool felted Advent wreath but it seemed to have disappeared. I searched and searched wondering if  I was losing my mind and never even unpacked it. Then it just magically appeared

…on top of K’s head. She dug out her Santa Lucia dress and was pretending it was Santa Lucia day. It will be here before we know it! We slowed things way down and got more serious about what the day means by dinner time as we settled into the evening and lit our first candle. What a special day!

I said I would keep this short but I wanted to share these adorable Christmas stockings from the Swell Company with you. Aren’t they perfect?! They were inspired by an old children’s fairy book illustration from the 1930′s and are all hand knit by stay at home mothers in Maine, using natural Maine wool, dyed with organic dyes. Oh how I love that. I could see five of them in a row on our fireplace, couldn’t you? They remind me of old farmhouses, cozy evenings by the fire and Elsa Beskow drawings.
Kate, the owner of the Swell Company is kindly offering all of you 10% off your order through the month of December with the coupon code ‘FRONTIER’.

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