Celebrating Advent...

This is the first season where we will be trying to celebrate a traditional advent.  I was raised Catholic and I remember this tradition with fondness...the lighting of the candles week after week leading up to Christmas, the nativity slowly coming to life, and the magic of this season.

Yesterday we had our last craft class at my house.  Beautiful mama Leslie brought along the advent calendar she used for her own children.  There are 25 pockets, and each felt piece lives in the pocket and emerges day by day.  I think this is just one of the loveliest Advent calendars I've seen.

on December 6th, there is St Nicholas...

and the Christ child for Christmas day!  

Here is our own Advent stick all wrapped up and ready to go...each package contains a sweet little present, lovingly handcrafted by mamma friends.   If you want to see some of the treasures inside you can head over to 

the Knitty Gritty Homestead

Embracing the Now

  and Wabi-Sabi Wanderings

I think this was the BEST Advent Stick yet...as our craft skills continue to grow, and we share in our creativity...our children LOVE this Advent tradition, and it is our gift as friends to each other.  Each day one package gets ripped off the stick until Christmas day.

And lastly...mrs Knitty Gritty and I hosted our last craft class.  The choises were Rainbow Gnomes or a Nativity set.  Here are a few pictures of "works in progress"...to be honest I was so busy crafting my own Nativity set, I didn't have time to take many pictures...

Here are my wise men...one more headpiece to go!  They were simple to make...peg people covered in colourful cloth, a cape and then crown or head wrap.

And here is Mary, Joseph and a shepherd.  Essentially made the same way as above, but with a longer headdress.  The head dress is made from a large oval of fabric,  do a gathering stitch in the shape of a circle and then gather it up...glue it on the head and that's it.  Hair and beard are wool roving.

I'm excited at the prospect of having a little Nativity set that is mama made!

If you require some guidance with your own Advent celebration, I'm going to direct you over to 

the Parenting Passageway...there are some great posts there to help get you started on your own Advent celebration.

'this the season of celebration and creating tradition!

xo maureen

PS...don't forget about our giveaway!!!   We will close comments tomorrow night at midnight, so go and enter now.  You can enter once daily, the only thing you have to do is tell us your favourite item in our big cartel shop.  And from now until December 8th you can get 15% off in our shop with the code "toadstool".  Good luck to all who enter.  We'll announce the winner on Wednesday morning!