So what do we do for Advent...?

A friend asked this question of all of her friends on facebook.

Never being one for short answers I told her I'd blog it for her.

We have a lot of family traditions for the season...so this will probably take several posts.

Advent for us actually starts before the liturgical season does.

Advent is after all a time of preparation for Christmas.

Which for our family, begins the day after Thanksgiving.

We have a strict rule of no Christmas music in the house until after Thanksgiving.

So...Friday morning we put on Bing Crosby's Christmas Album.

On, not in.  It's a record.  As in vinyl.  We have the cd of course, but it doesn't sound the same.

We have breakfast and then I go to Joann Fabrics with some of the children while the rest of the children tidy up the house and get the Christmas stuff out of the closet they are stored in.

I'm usually home by 10am, but always by noon. (I only go to the fabric store on Black Friday.)

After lunch we start decorating the house. 

We hang up the greenery and the ribbons, put up my angel collection and JR's nutcracker collection.

We also put up the small nativity scene that belong to JR's uncle Father Ed.

While doing this we listen to Christmas music.

We have leftovers for supper.

We start reading Christmas books during story-time too.

Everything from the Bible, to Charles Dickens to Dr. Seuss, culminating with the infancy narratives on Christmas Eve.

We don't put up everything today, but we start.

Decorating the house takes pretty much all of Advent.

We do it in stages, and put the finishing touches out on Christmas Eve.

That whole preparation thing.

Tomorrow I'll tell you about Tree Day.

Thanks for reading.