Advent Traditions

lifeatthezoo | November 10, 2017 | Christmas | 2 Comments

I know we have written about Advent Traditions before.. but that was soooo long ago, that I thought I would revisit them. Mainly to see whether we are still doing them! I recently wrote about how busy I get, so the question is.. do those traditions from all those years ago still stand strong.

Advent for me starts on the 1st Advent Sunday… which “oddly” enough often falls in November. There are 4 advent Sundays in the run up to Christmas, and you basically work you way back from Christmas Day. This year, Advent will be on the 27th November. Nice an early. The School Christmas fairs are usually the day before, which DOES help as a reminder.

In previous years, when I felt a little less busy, November was about writing Christmas cards (yes, let’s get them done early) and starting our Christmas baking, so that on the 1st of Advent, the Advent candles are out, we can listen to some Christmassy music and munch on biscuits. We also like the idea of playing family board games and reading Christmas stories.

So what does Advent this year look like…. well, this year (hence the writing of this post), I HAVE JUST remembered in time that Advent Sunday is just around the corner (yikes, only 4 days to go). That means I need 4 big candles and some biscuits between now and Sunday. Well, I can’t go shopping today, I have videos to film for YouTube, tomorrow, my son is on a school trip that I am helping out on and then we have the school fair and a theatre trip. I need at least IKEA or TIGER for those big candles. ARGH.

But wait. The theatre is in Hammersmith. Hammersmith has a TIGER shop. Sorted. So on the EVE of the 1st Advent, I will have the candles JUST IN TIME. That means the kids THIS year will be helping me decorate for advent.

Biscuits. Uhm. Nope. None baked. Ok, luckily some friends gave us some M&S Christmas Biscuits last week. So again, so long as we bake some Vanille Kipferl and maybe Husaren Krapfen today, we will have made a good start. I am pretty certain that I know where all the Christmas Story Books are too!

Christmas Cards?? Pffft. I wrote 4 to the people that “demand them”.. and that is it. No more!

So that is the 1st of Advent sorted. LITERALLY by the skin of my teeth. Yes, we set out on all these wonderful traditions, but can we keep up with them? Yes, I think we JUST about can. But this is my message to you – come up with something for YOUR family, that you know you can do year in year out. Where the fun and magic remains, without TOO much additional stress. Don’t get too ambitious, keep it simple and family orientated!!

Happy Christmas everyone!

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