Advent

Tonight, to celebrate the third week of Advent, we lit the Candle of Adoration.

 This is not a tradition I celebrated as a child, but I love the warm glow of candles, and nativities, and the kids love it as well.  It not only reminds us of the Christmas story, it also creates a beautiful ambiance for our pizza and clementine gourmet dinner.

 The shepherd and sheep are added to our nativity tonight, as they come to adore the Christ child.

 The book we follow for Advent is below.  Every Advent celebration is different, depending on the traditions of a particular church or family, but I've found this devotion to be very easy and beautiful, with Christmas carols included (my kids know the most obscure carols, like "Lully Lullay" and "The Holly and the Ivy" and my absolute favorite, "O Come, O Come Emmanuel," because I've always sung Christmas carols as lullabies--I love them).

 I came upon this book a long time ago at a Goodwill store of all places, and got it for the bargain price of 49 cents.  Significantly undervalued.

 The kids know what each candle represents, and as we light the candles at dinner, they name each one:
1. The Candle of Waiting, for when the angel Gabriel appears to Mary (the Annunciation)
2. The Candle of Joy, for the birth of our Savior
3. The Candle of Adoration, for the visit of the shepherds
4. The Candle of Love or Giving, for the visit of the wise men (but the kids insist there's a Candle of Family, so we go with it :0)

And since we played the bottle cap (thimble) game tonight, in which we ask questions at the table and whoever guesses the right answer gets doused in a bottle cap's measure of water, we tried to douse the candles out as well.  We usually don't make a habit of playing with fire, but it was fun!