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52 Card Project 2021: Week 48: Advent
Dec. 3rd, 2021 07:50 pmOne of the best Christmas gifts I ever received was from my sister Betsy: when I was a young mother, she handmade an Advent banner with a Christmas tree and all the felt ornaments to hang on it. It was a huge delight to my girls and me to move the ornaments from the bottom of the banner to hang on the tree one by one as we counted the days down to Christmas. (To avoid arguments, Delia did the even ornaments and Fiona the odd ones.)
This week, I pulled out the banner and hung it again with all its ornaments. Each morning, I shift one of the ornaments to the felt tree at the top of the banner and take a picture which I send out to the girls and a few others as a Snapchat.
This is just one of the rituals we have for the season of Advent and Christmas. Long-time readers of this blog are probably familiar with some of them: I have a whole collection of Christmas pins that I pull out and wear through the month of December. There are decorations we put up every year. We have done annual portraits for years that I use to create a photo card that accompanies a holiday letter I send out to about 120 people. The girls and I do an annual cookie bake with my sisters and my mom. Fiona makes lussekatter for us to eat on December 13 in celebration of St. Lucia day. We have an elaborate Christmas breakfast. We gather with my family in the week between Christmas and New Year's in the evening. Then we round out the holidays with a 12th-night breakfast.
We've had to adjust these rituals as the girls have grown and moved away to make homes of their own, and, of course, when I lost Rob. Last year, the pandemic threw EVERYTHING up in the air, too. It has prompted a great deal of thought about what I truly like doing in the lead up to the holidays, versus what is just an unnecessary burden. I am trying to be flexible: this year, Christmas breakfast will be at Fiona and Alona's house (Eric and Alona's mom will come, too), but Delia and Chris will not be able to join us. As I am working to envision the years to come, as our family grows and Eric and I figure out how we want to intertwine our lives together, rituals will have to change and grow.
I do love those Advent (and Christmas and New Year's) rituals so very much.
This week's card is based on the Advent banner. I made the top part of the banner semi-transparent with my own Christmas tree superimposed over the felt tree, with a scattering of my Christmas pins encircling it.
Advent
Click here to read about the 52 card project and see the year's gallery.
This week, I pulled out the banner and hung it again with all its ornaments. Each morning, I shift one of the ornaments to the felt tree at the top of the banner and take a picture which I send out to the girls and a few others as a Snapchat.
This is just one of the rituals we have for the season of Advent and Christmas. Long-time readers of this blog are probably familiar with some of them: I have a whole collection of Christmas pins that I pull out and wear through the month of December. There are decorations we put up every year. We have done annual portraits for years that I use to create a photo card that accompanies a holiday letter I send out to about 120 people. The girls and I do an annual cookie bake with my sisters and my mom. Fiona makes lussekatter for us to eat on December 13 in celebration of St. Lucia day. We have an elaborate Christmas breakfast. We gather with my family in the week between Christmas and New Year's in the evening. Then we round out the holidays with a 12th-night breakfast.
We've had to adjust these rituals as the girls have grown and moved away to make homes of their own, and, of course, when I lost Rob. Last year, the pandemic threw EVERYTHING up in the air, too. It has prompted a great deal of thought about what I truly like doing in the lead up to the holidays, versus what is just an unnecessary burden. I am trying to be flexible: this year, Christmas breakfast will be at Fiona and Alona's house (Eric and Alona's mom will come, too), but Delia and Chris will not be able to join us. As I am working to envision the years to come, as our family grows and Eric and I figure out how we want to intertwine our lives together, rituals will have to change and grow.
I do love those Advent (and Christmas and New Year's) rituals so very much.
This week's card is based on the Advent banner. I made the top part of the banner semi-transparent with my own Christmas tree superimposed over the felt tree, with a scattering of my Christmas pins encircling it.
Click here to read about the 52 card project and see the year's gallery.