Friday, December 18, 2020

Third Week of Advent: Preparation and Peace

Happy Friday everyone, and happy Third Week of Advent! I'm always excited to light the pink candle:


...AND our parish is still open, so we were able to attend our favorite 11 am Sunday mass! They announced this week that Christmas masses would be by reservation (to assure that the capacity restrictions won't be a factor) so I called and made ours for Christmas day at 10 am, also our favorite mass for that occasion. I know Christmas eve is a favorite for many, but there is a serenity on Christmas morning that has really taken hold of my heart in recent years. Plus, there is way less demand for attendance at that one, so it's always quiet and peaceful. :-)

Our Advent calendars continue to thrive! Here is our magnetic one, we're progressing right now through animals, shepherds and stars:


The Holy Family, of course, is reserved for the spots of honor. ;-)

Soooo, I am very much not a huge fan of the Elf on the Shelf tradition (it's just odd to me, but to be fair, I suppose one could say that about any number of holiday traditions), but Anne LOVES IT and has talked nonstop about the elf they have in her classroom at school. Mike lives for this kind of stuff, so he bought an elf, and he and Anne have been guiding this thing around our house for the past few weeks. Apparently, elves "just appear after Thanksgiving", rather than being bought at Target, I almost screwed that one up. 🤷🤣 At any rate, Felix the elf has become a member of the family, and he even helped me photograph my Christmas doily this week to submit in a class in my online crafting community:

Weird, but true

In other crafting news, I'm making my nephew a frog:

Pattern is Frog and Toad from From and Cast

Looks like a green blob right now, but I promise, it'll be a frog. :-0 He's green, so kinda Christmassy? Won't be able to say that about the accompanying toad, we'll save him for New Years. ;-) I'll make it my goal to get caught up on my Advent gnome this weekend, and photograph him for next week's post!

Speaking of New Years, there's obviously no belly dancing this year owing to all of the restaurants being closed for indoor dining right now (amongst other factors), but I'm in an online Christmas themed show this weekend that I'm *really* looking forward to! After that is done on Saturday evening, I'm excited to relax into the holiday season with some cookie baking and wrapping the next day with the kids. 😍

How was your Third Week of Advent? Look for next week's post a bit early, given how the holiday will fall in the week, I'm thinking Wednesday!

4 comments:

  1. Glad you are having a nice Advent. Your magnetic Advent calendar is lovely. Your nephew will probably love that frog. We are still finishing decorating. The wrapping is not done but will be soon. We baked some sugar cookies with the Christmas cookie cutters. We ordered a Nativity cookie cutter set in Amazon. We will make cookies with them next. We use the Pillsbury sugar cookies because they are the only ones Marion can eat. She is allergic to nuts and chocolate among other things. How did you do with the snow storm? We received about 7 to 8 inches here in Queens. Enjoy the remaining days of Advent. God Bless you and your lovely family.
    Joan,Marion and Marilyn

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi ladies! Glad I'm not alone in the wrapping dilemma, ha ha! I'm planning to tackle that today! OMG nativity cookie cutters?! This sounds amazing!

      We actually got only a small amount of snow, maybe an inch or two? Not very much. But we're getting about a foot on Christmas day!

      Delete
  2. I just LOVE the Frog & Toad pattern! Sooooo cute. The Frog & Toad stories always cracked me up. Hope your nephew likes them as much as my girls and I do.

    How was your Christmas-themed show?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Dianne! Thank you! I've been hard at work on frog, will post an update photo today!

      Show went great, I'll touch on that in today's post, too, thanks for reminding me!

      Delete

Thank you for commenting! I read and appreciate every single one, and I will respond to each one personally!