I always tend to feel anx­ious around any hol­i­day or hol­i­day cel­e­bra­tion, as in the “This is going to be a beau­ti­ful freak­ing hol­i­day dang it!!” crazy woman feel­ing.  In many ways it is my anx­ious nature that makes it eas­ier for me to appre­ci­ate the Advent sea­son.  I know that sounds con­tra­dic­tory but hey I am often a walk­ing con­tra­dic­tion! Why change now?!

Any­way, my point is if I ever had one (who knows any­more) that the inten­tional slow­ing down helps to keep our fam­ily and our home in a state of antic­i­pa­tion, build­ing up slowly and tak­ing time to reflect on the mean­ing of why we are wait­ing.  As of now the Advent wreath is out. The Jesse Tree is hung on the door.  A fresh ever­green wreath is up on the door com­plete with a big red bow. Oh,  how I love the smell of fresh ever­green! And I have begun to lam­i­nate every­thing in sight for the kids to use as part of learn­ing about Advent. I found a great col­lec­tion of ideas for Advent includ­ing print­a­bles like the Advent 2011 cal­en­dar above at O Night Divine.  There are also some great ideas for the Christ­mas sea­son too there.

Also, I may have even bro­ken my own no Christ­mas music before Christ­mas rule (which was a prac­ti­cally impos­si­ble rule any­way when I think about it) with a CD set of instru­men­tal Celtic Christ­mas & Advent music we got from Tar­get. Truth be told, I am jonesin’ for more.  Shhh…don’t turn me into the music police!  I couldn’t help it.  Yet, even with break­ing my own rules as the world around us con­tin­ues to rush for­ward we are slow­ing down to take in the small moments together as a fam­ily, cre­at­ing mem­o­ries rooted in our tra­di­tions and that feel­ing of some­thing big being around the cor­ner is build­ing within us. It is a beau­ti­ful feel­ing for this anx­ious lady.

{ 2 comments }