How I Love Advents
December in my home growing up was always packed with Christmas traditons. I told you we had a great mix of German Christmas and Venezuelan Chrsistmas (can you imagine a mashup of Oh Tannenbaum and Feliz Navidad? it’s kind of like that). It made for a month of magic.
One of my favorite traditions is Advent Sunday. Everything about it is perfectly lovely. We hang a wreath by ribbons over the table, where it looks over our Christmas festivities all month. We clip four candles on it, and the four Sundays before Christmas we light one, then two, then three, then all four candles. We usually also have the candlelight from one of these (notice there are four doors? perfect for advent. i also love this
saw this mini advent wreath here, I totally want to make my own
And, of course, we always had other advent calendars around the house. At least two per kid and one for the whole family. So before I head off to fit in some quick black friday shopping (tempted to buy this guitar),
I thought I’d share with you a few favorite advent calendars.
available here via Simple Song
available here
seen here
seen 
love these slippers, available here seen here
seen 
from here
from here
available here
wish these guys still carried these
yum. from here
i love pop-ups. available here
Tags: gifts for nieces and nephews, gifts for someone away from home, mailable gifts
November 27th, 2009 at 9:00 am
wow. that gingerbread looking advent calendar is amazing! I may just have the right materials to make it! thanks for all the lovely links!
November 27th, 2009 at 9:31 am
We’re an advent Sunday family, too! It’s one of my favorite memories from childhood and we’ve carried on the tradition now. (I love to make it an excuse to invite others to join in, too, and bring music or a story.)
Happy advent this Sunday!
November 27th, 2009 at 11:41 am
Beautiful! Thank you for the links! I especially love the sausage. LOL
November 27th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
Advent calendars always make me happy. What a wonderful collection.
Our advent wreaths growing up always had a purple candle for the third week. Of course, I was always too distracted by the flame to remember the exact significance…
“The purple candle represents… Ooooohh! Fire!!”
November 27th, 2009 at 8:27 pm
thank you for this round-up! I had seen #2 and 5 on…poppytalk? and fell in love. I’m doing a mishmash of #2 this year, working on it this weekend–but for sure next year it will be all about #5! those wee slippers are awesome!
November 27th, 2009 at 10:29 pm
What beautiful ideas. I love the wreath over the dining room table, and the bright red house advent calendar. Thanks for the suggestions.
November 28th, 2009 at 11:51 am
Great ideas. Wonderful post! Thanks Amber :-)
November 28th, 2009 at 6:00 pm
I’ve never had an advent calendar. They look like a lot of fun. I especially love the look of the one with the bear. Great overview and ideas!
November 29th, 2009 at 10:22 am
I love this blog! How do i follow it? Is there a way to add it to the blogs I follow on blogger? Thanks! All of your ideas are fantastic! I am especially excited for the craft table we are putting together for our daughter – your organizational ideas are great!
November 29th, 2009 at 10:22 am
Oops … I meant blogspot! Not blogger. :-)
November 30th, 2009 at 8:46 am
I love advent and having something special each day. I am on the losing end of this holiday activity and really didn’t plan anything. But, I love it and want my children to experience it as well. So, last night I whipped together 25 tags of various colors, shapes and size and and stamped 1 through 25 on the front of the tags, held together with a book ring. I will write something special to do, to make, to eat on each tag and we will celebrate each day!
Next year, an advent calendar is high on my holiday priority to-do list.
December 1st, 2009 at 9:24 pm
Hi Jessa,
Thanks for your comment. Sorry it took me a little while to respond. I had to go give this a try myself (and I was excited to find the result!) I went into my blogger profile and looked under the “Reading List” section. I clicked on the tab that says “Blogs I’m Following” and clicked on the add button at the bottom. I just pasted in http://www.giverslog.com and it worked. And this is probably more info than you want, but I follow several blogs using Google Reader, which I really like. I hope this works out for you. If it doesn’t or if I overlooked something, just let me know!
Good luck with your daughter’s craft table! It sounds like so much fun.
-Amber
December 3rd, 2009 at 9:08 pm
wow, what a great collection! i’m going to mention this post on my Twitter :)
December 10th, 2009 at 11:40 am
I am German living in the US now – and there are only few things that I miss being here one of them is the Christkindlsmarkets. The advents wreaths and calendars are a given and memories of sitting together on a sunday after church with cookies and coffe are still on my mind.
December 11th, 2009 at 11:00 am
hi Susanna,
thanks for stopping by. i wish I could come have cookies with you after church some time!