Advent. It's a Thing.

Advent is a thing.

I mean, I know it's a thing.  I grew up in the Catholic church for goodness sakes - I KNOW Advent.  If there's one thing the Catholic church does well, it's tradition.  (Cue opening song to Fiddler on the Roof...)  The candles, the prayers, the anticipation.  It's a beautiful thing.

But suddenly it's an INTERNET thing.  At least the corners of the internet that I frequent. The Pinterest-y, mom blog, "489 Ways to Celebrate Advent With Your Children!!!!!!1!!"- type corners.  And maybe there aren't actually articles with 489 ways to celebrate Advent, but when everyone is posting up all the things they are doing during the season, it sure seems like it.  I think by now we're all familiar with social media overload.  It's kind of exhausting to think about.  Especially when December kind of creeps up on you.  I mean, I knew it was coming - it was November and all - but November seemed like a quick march right up to Thanksgiving, (and travel, in our case), and so here we are, thrust into Advent with no particular plans.  No daily calendar, no hidden chocolates or candies or puzzles for each day.  Are you covering your mouth in horror?  Because admitting that almost seems like the ultimate #momfail these days.

Let's be honest, parenting small children is difficult enough without adding HOLIDAYS to the mix.  The everyday is filled with too many things to do in not enough time without worrying about adding some holiday magic to the mix.

Thankfully, the kids are pretty good about adding the magic themselves.

Grabbing Mary and a sheep and singing "Mary Had a Little Lamb"?  Magical.  And, yup, hilarious.

Being blessed to celebrate another first Christmas?  Definitely magic.

Listening to Caden read me the Christmas story?  Which involves this SINGLE page.  And goes like  this: "And they say 'hi Jesus!' and they all singing the sheep and the flying and ev-yone happy the end".  Every time.  Magic.

So, with three kids under three, I've committed to doing exactly four things this year to celebrate Advent and lead up to Christmas.  (And by now you should have realized...ain't no elves up on my shelves.  Props if you can pull that off, but as for me and my house?  NO thank you.)

     1. Read the Christmas story each day.  This one is half falling apart from all the love we've given it over the past couple of years, and has the best rhymes.
     2. Play with the nativity set each day.  The one shown above in the first photos was one we'd been given for the kids.  Let's just say that while the figures were kid-friendly in size, they were NOT kid-friendly in material.  A couple of broken wise men's crowns and half a shepherd later, we gave them this one as an early Christmas present.  We gave it to them on the 1st, and it has been THE MOST played with toy, by far, in the few days since then.

And since it's, y'know, made for kids, even Nolan can get in on the action.

"Sing me the SONG, mommy!"  Brooklyn says, every time she wants me to act out the Christmas story with the figures.  We've been over it many, many times.  Caden loves to fly the angel around, especially in scenes when the angel has KEY LINES, such as "hey btw you're totes gonna have give birth to God's son", and laughs hysterically as he zooms away. Brooklyn carries Baby Jesus and "his mommy" around all over the house.  And Nolan, y'know, chews on everything.  It's got something for everyone!

It's also great because Caden and Brooklyn are in prime-play pretend mode.  So far this morning Mary, a wise man, and the camel have gone on an adventure to "daddy's store" (aka Lowe's).  "Do you have your money?"  "Buckle up!" (Apparently this camel has advanced safety features.)  "It's far, far away." 

     3. Sing Christmas songs.  Hymns.  We're loving the Christmas albums from Mercy Me, Brandon Heath, and Casting Crowns.
     4. And, of course, we made a paper chain.

(Surprisingly good paper-chain makers.)

They get to rip off one chain each night, of course.  We alternate.  Brooklyn gets the red ones, Caden gets the green ones, because everything is all "Green my favorite.  I love green, mommy." lately.

5 days down.  20 more to go.

We're not going to do everything this year.  Or any year, really.  But we can do some things.  And this isn't all that we'll do.  We made some Christmas cookies over the weekend.  I can assure you that we'll make many more before the season is up.  We'll play in the snow, read some Christmas stories, attend some parties.  But are we going to cram in every community event, every Santa visit, every single holiday gathering we're invited to?  Nope.  And I'm fine with that.  

We're having fun right here.

Post (Thanksgiving) Weekend

Thanksgiving.  It doesn't seem to fly by exactly, but as soon as it's over it's on to the next thing - Christmas!  And I don't mind it that way.  The transition from the most beautiful fall harvest holiday, filled in my mind with all things burlap, delicious, and cozy, to the Christmas season, filled instead with bright colors, lights, and sparkle, is a fun one.  I love both holidays, but my mind has been so preoccupied with all things Christmas since arriving back home from celebrating in Iowa, that these photos seem like they were taken much longer than mere days ago.

(Packing helper.  Really.  I man, he didn't even TRY to take the clothes out of the suitcase.  It's a Thanksgiving packing miracle!)

(He did, however, pack himself into the suitcase.  Fair enough.)

One thing looked more like Christmas than Thanksgiving the morning before we left, though...

(As we are deep in the throes of all things Frozen right now, (I guess there's no escaping that one with toddlers), his name, of course, is Olaf.)

(Our halfway treat: smoothies and french fries for all.  They clearly do not enjoy it.  And now when we drive past any golden arches Caden calls it "the french fry place".)

(Early morning storytime with Grandpa.)

(Naptime with Daddy.  Before even getting to any of that turkey.)

(Naps done.  Ready for turkey.)

(Hurry it up, dad.)

(There it is.)

(His eyes are so big I think he's stuck with a deer-in-the-headlights look no matter what.)

(Approved of the pumpkin pie.  Ate more than his fair share.)

(Who me?)

First time, that the twins can remember, anyway, in "grown-up church".  Brooklyn got into the music with some hand-clapping.

This guy, on the other hand.  Don't let that angelic singing face fool you.  If you follow me in Instagram, you already know that he was belting out a rousing rendition of "Old MacDonald" from the hymnal, before declaring, "I don't like church" during the morning's announcements.  

(Worn out from the long weekend.)

(Though they did wake up to play with some new goodies.  And another stop at "the french fry place".)

Now back home.  More normal schedules and routines, our own toys and technology ("let's watch Super Why!" is a common refrain around here), errands and playdates.

And most importantly, most excitingly...

...adding some bits of Christmas.

Nolan Nine Months

Thanksgiving Tree

Thanksgiving.  It's this week.  It's one of my favorite holidays.  Which for me this year means gearing up for a road trip to Iowa and packing clothes, potty chairs, diapers, and, most importantly, loads snacks and distractions for the car.  (Though exactly when and how this packing will get done with three kids around remains to be seen.)

But for the past week or so, we've taken a little time out at dinner each night to talk about things we are thankful for.  I can't take credit for the idea as I've seen it floating around the internet in different forms over the years, but now I have kids old enough to participate in what I hope will become a family tradition.  It's also about as simple and as cheap as far as projects go (BONUS): branches from the yard, sparkly cardstock I already had, cut into leaf shapes.  String I also already had, hole punched, looped through, and tied in a knot.

Each night at dinner we go around the table and say one thing we are thankful for.  (I mean, except for Nolan.  Though I can pretty much guess that if he could talk his answers would amount to "milk", "pretty much any and all food", and "the two middle fingers on my right hand that almost never leave my mouth".)  Our one rule: no repeats.  Brooklyn got stuck after "the color blue", "the color pink", and "daddy".  Only three days in, huh?  We've helped her out a bit since then.

Also keep your expectations LOW.  At least for the very little ones.  I'm pretty sure that someone wound up in time-out after we were one answer in the first night.  And while I'd love some shots of them hanging their answers up on the branches (possibly their favorite part, besides picking out which leaf to use each night), it's usually pretty dramatic with a lot of "no don't stand ON the bookshelf" and "give me your leaf right NOW"-type comments happening.  Maybe they'll be able to hang them by themselves with a little less stress in a few years.  Like when they're 16?

Shown above: Caden's answer from the very first night.  Can't say I blame him.

I meant to start this awhile ago so we had it up for the whole month of November, but that just didn't happen.  Oh well.  Do what you can when you can.  We started last Monday and will continue until we leave on Wednesday.  Or maybe I'll bring some leaves along for Thanksgiving Day, as well.  It's something you can do for a few days this week, or as a big group with whoever you celebrate Thanksgiving with, or even in the weeks leading up to Christmas.

And we've had some impressive answers.  My designer heart couldn't help but be glad when Brooklyn named colors  s the top things she was thankful for (blue the first night, pink the second), but was also surprised that while Caden's first night was bread, his answer the second night was church.

(Other answers include "cheese", "pizza", and "bunny crackers".  Guess the kids have a thing for food.)

Happy Thanksgiving!