Merry Christmas to all...and to all a Good Night!

This has been a very memorable Advent and Christmas.... My family has enjoyed creating a new tradition with the Advent Candles and we will be continuing with parts of it throughout the New Year, I'm certain. I have enjoyed being a part of Brother Maynard's Advent Synchroblog and taking the time to ponder the meaning of Advent and Christmas from a fresh perspective.

We enjoyed our unusual Advent Wreath and had an interesting collection of scents! The purple ones were Black Current, the Candle of Joy was a Lavender scent and color (even though the picture might look pink, it is still purple ;^) ), and the white Christ candle was Soft Cotton--which smelled a bit like baby powder...how appropriate, don't you think!

On Christmas Eve afternoon, we finally put up a lighted wreath outside, exchanged the Autumn Scarecrow for the Winter Snowman to greet folks at the front door, set the Advent Candles up on the table (in preparation for Christmas Day), decorated a small corner of the family room with our humble tree ... and called it good!

It was a Christmas filled with books ... we are very much a bookish family ;^) ... and one community toy--the Lego Royal Castle. Peter and I enjoyed building it (Alexander and Nicholas were distracted by the snow and had to go outside ... but Peter is not quite 100%, so he was my helper!) ... I have almost as much fun with the Legos as the boys do! I'm a bit stiff from sitting on the floor for over three hours, however! :^(

We just had a lovely, simple day--especially as it snowed for most of the afternoon--and moved the Advent Candles back up to the little boy's room for our Christmas devos from Brother Maynard's book. We enjoyed listening to the Moody Blues version of What Child is This (among others), revisiting The Huron Carol one more time (we just love this one!), and closed--as we always do--with Northumbria's May the Road Rise to Meet You.

God is so good to us! Today there was a hint of shalom in our house--a bit of calm, a hint of tranquility, and a lot of contentment. We'll be pondering our Purple Advent lessons throughout the New Year, you can be sure!

Shalom to you and your house!