advent

advent: the period beginning four sundays before Christmas and observed by some Christians as a season of prayer and fasting; the coming of Christ at the Incarnation

origin: middle english, from medieval latin adventus, from latin, arrival, from advenire

advent, or the period leading up to Christmas, always seems to be such a crazy and busy time. sometimes i don't mind the busy. other times i hate it. we do try to find ways to remember WHY we're celebrating, and eric really loves traditions. not sure why but he is always looking for something we can do as a family that will become a tradition. most of the time those things are fun!

after seeing some cool advent calendars on pinterest and other blogs i follow, i decided i wanted to make one for our family to put those traditions to good use! i remember having advent calendars as a kid, the kind where you punched open the little hole and ate your (usually nasty) chocolate for the day. i'm sure eric had similar calendars in his childhood. as a child these were an easy (and awesome) way to count down the days until - woohoo! - Christmas and presents and no school. other than that i don't seem to recall them pointing me towards the real reason for all of the holiday hoopla. because of that i wanted our family advent calendar to be a little different.

here's what i ended up with:

i borrowed the idea from this blog, although of course i subtracted and added a few things to make it my own. here's the scoop...each day is represented by a felt envelope. each envelope is filled with a ghiradelli's chocolate square (mint, caramel, or peppermint...yummm!) and a small square of paper. on the paper is printed either an advent/christmas related activity or scripture. SO! for the month of december i'll be blogging our advent adventures. if we have an activity planned, you'll get a post about that. if it is a scripture day, you'll get scripture. hope you remember the reason for the season and enjoy this crazy time with family and friends!