Thoughts on Advent this Week

We have two Advent calendars this year, one is the traditional chocolate filled one.  The other they enjoy much more and it is Come to Bethlehem and See, a devotional with stickers that fill the stable and surrounding sky and land with people and angels.  The church I worked with during teaching parish class this year, First Lutheran Church in New Oxford gave one of these sets to each family.  Ella is curious about what each person is doing near the barn and Callie likes to put the stickers on too.  We have our Nativity up, and each child has a mini Nativity scene to play with to avoid the breakage of my grandmother's set that my mom made years ago in Germany.  Every child likes to play Nativity.

Oh, you say you didn't know about the giraffe and puppies that waited for Christ's birth?  Well, she's yet to make sense of why I don't have Jesus up there either...

Are there any Advent books for children?  There are so many Hanukkah books and lots of Christmas books of course, but does anyone write them for Advent?  Some of the Advent Carols are so rich with imagery--Fling Wide the Door, The Angel Gabriel From Heaven Came, People Look East...

Well, I hope you all are having a happy Advent or starting to think about celebrating a number of holidays...we are not quite ready as I'm finishing up papers for classes and taking tests.  My NM mom is still in the hospital and we hope all will go well with operations to take out the cancer so the girls and I can visit with her after Christmas.  Prayers still appreciated.