Memories Made

Each Christmas season we make sure we stay focused on the reason for our celebration. Beginning the first Sunday after Thanksgiving, we set up the Advent Wreath in our tradition to retell the Christmas story. There are 5 candles on the Advent Wreath, each one representing a certain aspect of the Christ story. The Prophecy candle which tells of His coming in the Old Testament; the Shepherd Candle telling the story of the proclamation of Christ's birth, the Bethlehem Candle foretelling the place of the birth, the Angel's candle describing the angelic visit to Mary and Joseph. Each Sunday a new candle is lit in addition to the previous one(s) until all are lit. The final candle is the Christ Candle and it is lit on Christmas Eve, culminating the long awaited anticipation of Christmas Day. During the week, we try to have evening devotions with any of the children that are home, keeping the focus of Christmas on Jesus. We have carried on this tradition for many years and the kids have always enjoyed it. I have found various advent wreath candle holders at yard sales and thrift stores that I give to my kids to use with their families. We have treasured our family times around the advent candles.


This is the first fake tree I have ever had. I actually liked it. No mess and I didn't have to cut down a tree just to decorate my living room for a few weeks.

We had a full on dinner with the all of the family and some extra guests. The girls each brought home a boyfriend this year, that was different!

Darling DIL made this cute little gingerbread house for us to devour. Notice how absolutely perfect the "snow" is!! We hated to break it apart to eat it! Although the boys thought it was great fun to "bomb" it and make holes in it.