****CONTEST CLOSED!!!****
I love how my dinky blog gives people a pretty decent chance of winning; how fun is that?!
The winners were chosen by two non-literate children (Henry needs a haircut; don’t mind him):
“Hidden Fern” wins the St. Nicholas board book!
“Sarah O.” wins the Guadalupe book!
Please contact me asap to get these books shipped out to you: knowloveserve at gmail
Thanks for playing everyone!
I have been blessed to receive infrequent but delightful gift card announcements from amazon every few months from this blog. Your clicks and purchases have added an incredibly fun bonus for me to opine on one of my favorite subjects, which I’d happily do for free anyway. For that, I am taking this latest reward amount (which was small but exciting) and turning it right back to you…
Kindly leave a comment sharing one of your favorite Advent traditions and I’ll have a high-tech method (child’s hand reaching in hat) of choosing a winner for two different copies of a couple of our favorite books celebrating the feasts of St. Nicholas and Our Lady of Guadalupe coming up this week and next.
Deadline for both is Thursday, December 4th by noon, PST.
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| Saint Nicholas: The Real Story of the Christmas Legend: This board book is always a happy sight to see in our “baby book basket” this time of year. |
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| Our Lady of Guadalupe: There are a few great versions of this tale; this one is our favorite for its realism and nicely done art. |
Just one?? haha… Kids love doing the sacrifice manger for baby Jesus and also the Holy Heroes Advent Adventure. We also love as a family doing our Advent Prayer Chain each night for the rosary and singing a verse of Emmanuel after grace at dinner. and THANK YOU Again for this fabulous blog!
Every year at the beginning of advent we pull out all our decorations for the season. The kids delight in seeing some old favorite books and new ones waiting to be read. Typically new books for the season are given on the feast of St. Nicholas but this year things will be a little different. Nothing gets my family more in the spirit of the season than books, cookies, and candles (advent wrath). They kiss baby Jesus as we put him back in the box after setting out the crèche waiting for His arrival at Christmas. This season is magical.
We have many but the most treasured of traditions is one that my parents started over 40 years ago. They made a Jessie tree with burlap and felt that is 6 feet high. We hang the burlap and felt tree up every year and each day we put on a symbol (also made by my parents) and read the story that corresponds with that symbol until the 25th when we put up the King Sign symbol celebrating Jesus' birth. Blessed!
We have many, but my favorite has to be the nightly lighting of our Advent wreath, complete with prayers and singing.
You win the Guadalupe book; congrats! Please see post for my contact info to give me your address for shipping.
Inspired by you, we have taken our Jesse Tree observance in a new direction this year and are going through it with picture books. Super fun so far! We also love celebrating St. Nicholas day and paying for strangers' meals at drive thrus in our area. SO much fun!!!
We love setting up our empty manger and moving Mary, Joseph, donkey, and the three wise men closer each day. Also hiking through our woods to find fragrant evergreen branches and fun nature to decorate the home! Great giveaway, thanks!
We read a picture book a day which the children love, but one of my favorite things is making speculatis cookies for St. Nicholas's feast day and then driving around to deliver them to our friends.
For the last few years, we have had foster children in our home. They enjoyed taking turns hanging the ornament on the Jesse tree each night and seeing the Advent candles lit. Now that we have two little girls, we are excited to share these traditions with them.
You win the St. Nicholas board book; congrats! Please see post for my contact info to give me your address for shipping.
We make ornaments for a Jesse tree and hang them on a small tree in the dining room. Some of them get moved onto the large tree we put up during Gaudete week.
My kids favorite is quickly becoming the celebration of the feast of St. Nicholas with new books and treats in their shoes. We then have a fancy tea for breakfast, they absolutely love it. Growing up my mom made these St. Nicholas and black Peter sock puppets that she would do a puppet show about being nice or naughty, and the true meaning of Christmas. We LOVED it and I have yet to replicate it for my children – but someday!
My favorite growing up was always the Jesse Tree. 🙂 We are just starting our own Advent traditions (our oldest is 2.5) but so far my favorite is definitely setting up the nativity piece by piece as Advent progresses!
We love to unwrap and read an advent/Christmas book each night. Would love to have one of these.
A few years ago, during the last several weeks of my last pregnancy I cross stitched the most lovely set of Jesse Tree ornaments. We love our Jesse Tree tradition in this house 🙂
I would love to cross-stitch Jesse Tree ornaments! Did you use a pattern? (I'm on the second of four stockings, so I've probably already bitten off more than I can chew before they all go off to college, but I still dream.)
I purchased a pattern several years ago from a cottage homeschooling retailer. They are no longer in business and the patterns are no longer available. They really are gorgeous :http://halfadozenproductions.blogspot.com/search?q=jesse+tree
My favorite advent tradition right now is the Jesse Tree- my son is loving it!
The only one we've managed to stick with through the years is our Advent wreath. There's something about fire that my kids enjoy … 😉
We love doing the Holy Heroes Advent Adventure videos and Jesse Tree.
We make a paper countdown chain for the days of Advent. I use pretty purple scrapbooking paper to make the paper slips. Then we write the name of a friend/relative/intention on each slip before constructing the chain.
Each day we remove a link from the chain and pray especially for the person or intention (ex. yesterday we prayed for all the unborn babies) . The kids love watching the chain grow shorter, and our prayers are gifts for the Baby Jesus.
Our Jesse Tree and Advent Spiral are our favorite advent activities.