Away in a Manger

So far our favorite thing about Christmas this year has been doing Advent devotions together. Friends of ours did a Jesse Tree ornament craft swap-- which means... each day of the Advent Season there is a Bible reading that takes you through the Bible leading up to Christ's birth. Each Bible reading has a corresponding ornament. There are 28 ornaments for the 28 days leading up to Christmas. Each person made one or two ornaments and made 28 copies of them to share. I had everything ready to make mine... a candle... and then had my appendix out the week I was going to make them. The friends in charge kindly came up with an ornament for us and still gave us a set of ornaments to use. It has been a very fun family tradition. Each Sunday we do the traditional lighting of the candles. Each night we try to do the Advent reading. Between three of Cecily's children's Bibles and various Bible books, we have been able to find most stories from the readings. However, some of the prophecies coming up are going to be harder to come by. However, at this point just being together and putting the ornaments on the little tree are exciting enough for a 21 month and a 3 month old.

Here are a few videos of Cecily singing her favorite song. Here are also a few pictures of our first family advent time.