Advent stuff

 Part 2 of our Christmas stuff -- Advent!  We like the idea of anticipating Christmas and the reminder of what we should be looking forward to.  First up is our Christmas tree Adventkalendar.  This will probably look familiar to Lee children, but fear not that we stole the original; the Kirstily made it herself!  For everyone else: the idea behind this is for every day of December up to Christmas, we remove one "scroll" upon which is written a scripture reference about Christmas and Christ, which we then look up and read.  The trunk stores the papers, so we can re-use them next year.

 This year there's no prohibition on open flame in the house, so we're lighting candles in an Adventskranz (advent wreath).  The idea is to light one additional candle every Sunday before Christmas; we messed up this year and missed the last Sunday in November, but we're planning on improving as we learn!  For this year, we could just light the last one (the white one) on Christmas (or as close to it as we can, since we'll be in CA).  I found out that royal purple and white candles are traditional; purple because we're waiting for a King, and white for the Savior (in that role, as I understand it).  My dad tells me that they did this for Advent when he was growing up, so it's nice to try and keep up a multi-generational tradition.

 Our less-serious Advent activity this year: a LEGO Star Wars Advent Calendar!  Following are what we've opened so far (plus a snowspeeder we opened last night):

 There are droids,

people,

  

and, of course, vehicles. Can you identify them all?

Our final fun decoration is one we found while looking for some Christmas lights.  See if you can figure out why we got it!

Merry Christmas, e'rybody!