It’s December… This is my favourite time of the year! I love the anticipation of Christmas, the Christmas music (I’ve been listening to a lot of old school Christmas songs on Pandora and we’ve been through The Messiah quite a number of times now too!), the copious amount of Christmas baking with the smells of cinnamon and ginger and cloves hanging in the air, the planning of the Christmas meal, the joy of buying and wrapping gifts for people I love (oh, if only I had unlimited funds, then I could buy or make and wrap gifts for everyone… I love giving gifts!).
This year we decided to make a bit of a bigger deal about celebrating Advent in the lead-up to Christmas. The plan was to have a special meal for dinner and light the advent candles. With our Sundays being very full and busy, we settled on doing it on Saturday nights. Our special meal menus included Julia Child’s Boeuf Bourguignon, a creamy mushroom chicken & pesto pasta dish with pea salad and garlic bread, and a yummy Mexican dinner with chicken and beans.
Unfortunately we missed the first Saturday/Sunday of Advent because I was in the hospital, but the others have happened! (On that note, I’m recovering well — after 2 weeks of pain the doctor finally figured out what was causing it and the treatment has pretty much gotten rid of all the pain now. I’d say 99% back to my old self. Well, it can’t be a 100%, because my appendix is gone! :-) )
We also gave the kids a small present each time — the first time it was a Christmas cup, next time a Christmas plate and the last gift was a Christmas themed book. Marica got The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey and Esther got Room for a Little One. I think we all prefer the former, but Esther loves the animals, and the pictures are great even if the story is a bit far-fetched!
It’s been really cold here. It seldom gets above 5 C during the day, and is usually more around 0 C, so we stay inside as much as possible. The cold weather outside just seems appropriate… the seasons suddenly make sense — Christmas in the winter! Hmmm, hot chocolate and cups of tea along with all the Christmas goodies! We’re hoping for a white Christmas, but I’m not sure that will happen. At least the blog is snowing. :-)
Comments (3)
Oops, I published that under Ben’s name, so those of you who get the email might think that Ben’s had a bit of a personality change. He hasn’t. :-) It was me!
Your cookies look yummy, and I love your advent celebrations. What a lovely idea, to have a special meal and give gifts to the kids!
The blog snow storm seems to be blowing in from a different direction today. :) Hope you get a real white Christmas, too, though; we’re back to hoping for one now that we won’t be in Knoxville. It will be crazy if Knoxville gets snow but St. Louis doesn’t. Nice decorated cookies and good ideas for the girls’ advent gifts. Glad you’re back to the new 100%!