Posts Tagged ‘Advent’
getting ready for Christmas #3 – a countdown to Christmas
In our house, we usually do a countdown to Christmas. Ours is a countdown through Advent, beginning on the first Sunday in Advent and marking off the days, one at a time.
Most years, I have a Jesse tree, a tradition in some Christian homes. This celebrates the long genealogy of Jesus who was of the house of Jesse, the father of David. When my son was little, we had bread-dough ornaments each illustrating Biblical events. When he grew older, and as the ornaments started to show their age, I put red and green ribbons on our Jesse tree. The Jesse tree itself is a two to three foot tall branch from a birch tree. A memory I have through the years is of ironing those ribbons to remove the wrinkles of the year gone by.
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We also have a fabric Advent calendar with pockets for small treats. Most years we put mint sticks in each pocket. This year we couldn’t find our usual mint sticks, so we wrapped sticks of chocolate, one for each day in the calendar.
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This year, I decided to create something new to use for our countdown. On Pinterest, I have seen several examples of countdown ornaments created from tags embellished with various trinkets. So I made twenty-five of these, since this year Advent and December both began on December 1st.
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I printed tags with the numbers spelled out and fixed a small memento to each one. Most of these are trinkets I have kept in odd drawers over the years – mismatched earrings, buttons, acorns, feathers, shells, Christmas pins and so on. I threaded a ribbon through a hole punched in the tag. Each day since December 1, I have hung a new ornament, tying them to the bar of a drying rack we have in the living room.
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The ornaments are pretty and remind me of the days ahead and the days that have come and gone.
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Do you count down the days until Christmas????
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Copyright 2013 Jane Tims
in the circle of the evergreen wreath
Every year, during Advent, I either purchase or make a wreath of evergreens to celebrate the coming of Christmas. Last year, making the wreath, I had a little help. Zoë decided the perfect place to perch herself was within the circle of the wreath.
Our wreath materials were all obtained on our lake property. The species we used for our wreath were:
- White Pine (Pinus Strobus L.)
- White Cedar (Thuja occidentalis L.) also known as Arbor Vitae
- Balsam Fir (Abies balsamea (L.) Mill.)
- Common Juniper (Juniperus communis L.) -the variety we used was too prickly and I won’t use it again.
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At this time of Advent, we wait in the darkest days of the year for Christmas. The wreath is one of the most endearing symbols of this wait. Made of evergreens, it speaks to the concept of everlasting love. To count down the Sundays before Christmas, we light purple and pink candles to symbolize ideas of Hope, Peace, Joy and Love. The lighted candles also represent bringing light into the world.
The wreath is another of those symbols borrowed from pagan times, when the circle represented the ever-changing seasons and the circle of life. The evergreen stood for the part of life that survives the winter season and candles symbolized light shining through darkness.
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gathering green
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in the space between solstice
and the whisper of stars
in a herded sky
daylight shrinks, always one hour
short of rested
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in the thicket we gather
armloads, garlands of green
fragrances of cedar and pine
red dogwood twigs
stems of red berry, alder cones
curved boughs of fir
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flexible as mattress coils, piled on ground
to rest, await brief
overlap, longest night
and feathering of angel down
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watch, through the trees
the struggle
planet light
and pagan fire
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© Jane Tims 2012
