Happy Advent!

Advent has begun, and we love this time of year! It's so fun to do all the regular traditions, and create new ones.

Over the weekend we got to do some fun things -- like go to Bethlehem. (It was a big church that transformed itself into a marketplace and village, complete with stable scene and all. Everyone received shekels as we went in and then had to pay half of them for taxes, and could spend the rest of them in the marketplace. There were live animals -- camels and everything!)
We also went down to our town center for our neighborhood's annual tree lighting/Christmas carol singing time. They had the horse-drawn carriage rides again, and Santa arrived to talk to the kids, etc. It was nice and warm this year -- not freezing like in years past!

And at home we've been busy decorating and setting up. Here are some of the things we've been up to:

Decorating the little tree that the Wingate folks gave us when Cole was born

Making paper chains

Setting up the Nativity set


And making our Advent wreath:

Katie and Graham came to make one, too

We had a little Christmas carol sing-along afterwards... ... and then Pete talked to us about the meaning of the first candle:

Despite what Strider's faces indicate in some of these pictures, we really have been having a fun time!