Advent

This is the first weekend of Advent and I am going to try very hard to do something special and Christmas-y with the kids to mark each day. Just small things.

Even last week, we went to the Lighting of Lamar Park, which was nice. It's an event at a little shopping center here that they have every year, where the shops put out lights and choirs come and sing and there are snacks in all the little stores. It's mostly about the snacks for us.

Yesterday, for the first day of Advent, we read the part of the Christmas story on the first day of our Advent calendar and hung the little book on our Advent calendar tree. The Lone Star Baby then moved the Magi a few inches down the hall for the first time this year. Tonight, the first Sunday in Advent, the Lone Star Girl lit the first calendar in our Advent Wreath and we had dinner with it lit in the middle of the table. It was nice.

I also took the girls to St. Nicholas Day at the museum. The museum used to celebrate St. Nicholas Night every year on the actual St. Nicholas Night with Santa and Christmas crafts and such. Now they have moved it to the Sunday afternoon before, and frankly, it was nowhere nearly as magical as the nights when we took the Lone Star Girl when she was little. It was still nice, though. The Lone Star Baby got her picture taken with Santa and got to make a Christmas cracker and a glittery pine cone ornament for our Christmas tree, as well as a Christmas-stamped bag to carry them in. She had fun. We actually had not planned to go, as we would normally have gone to First Day School and Meeting today, but Lone Star Pa was feeling very poorly and I did not want him to have to mind the Lone Star Baby while I had First Day School with the big girls and Silence later, so we skipped it. The Lone Star Baby doesn't do so well with situations in which she is expected to be quiet or patient. I wanted to get the girls out of the house, though, so Lone Star Pa could sleep and it seemed a good way to spend the time. He's still cough-y but somewhat better.