Advent activities

in our home include the making of a special Advent ring. I buy a standard non-decorated hay ring at the market and the family (me, my husband and two kids) decorate it at home according to our taste and to what we have at home. We often collect leaves and dried flowers. Sometimes we make the candles, too, from bee's wax sheets. This year I bought nice candles along with the hay ring, but the rest of the decoration is based our collection. We made it on 30 November. My son had hard times waiting for the first candle to be lit this past Sunday - he was eager to see the flames. He exclaimed that this is how a perfect Andvent ring should look like. I'm happy to having seen him content with what he'd done.

So here it is:

I think its bordering perfection :)

Another Advent activity for the kids is to see and wait for the doors of the Advent home to become unlocked per each morning. This little house was done by my husband and by my then 2 yo son years ago. The house itself is a small house with exactly 24 doors. Each year during the Advent, morning by morning another door opens and the kids find something nice and edible inside. It is the miracle of angels for them. Should they ask whether we put the sweets in there, we would kindly tell them the truth. But not before they need the truth. It is part of their childhood, so as is the magical appearance of presents under the tree at Christmas Eve. We tell them that as long as they believe in angels it is the angels that bring them presents; sweet delicacies and toys, books and such.

At school, kids surprise each other with presents, too. The teacher writes the names of each kid on a paper and the kids, one after another takes one piece of paper, thus deciding who will surprise who at the school Santa Claus event. This takes place on 6 December.