Advent

Remember how I’ve had this goal to get my “unfinished projects” pile down to just a little tub in my sewing room by the end of the year?  Well, this one was finished a month or two ago, and I’m a bit ashamed how long it’s been there.  Let’s see.  I started it at my mom’s house when we were there for Christmas, but it wasn’t last year.  So I’m guessing it was 3 years ago.

My mom had made this advent calendar at her MOPS groups when we were little, and putting a felt ornament up every day was such a big tradition during the advent season in our house, that my sister and I copied each and every ornament one year so that each of our families could continue on the fun tradition.  At my mom’s house, I made all of the ornaments.  Then the tree, pockets, and manger were all cut and ready to sew on, and it sat for about 3 years.  How disgusting is that?  So this year I finally finished it up, and sewed little pieces of Velcro to all of the ornaments and to the tree.  This year will be our first year using it.

Each day comes with a reading on how this Christmas symbol points us back to Christ.  Today is the trumpet, tomorrow is the candy cane, and after that the candle.  While my family isn’t quite as obsessed with tradition as Knut’s family is, this is one where the memories are so thick that I don’t think either my sister or I could bare anything changing about it.  The order of the ornaments must not change.  The rules must not change.

Rules?  Of course there are rules.  The oldest child starts the first year, and each child gets a turn after that each day.  Each year you rotate down who starts it.  The child reads the reading, and sticks up the ornament wherever he/she wants it go.  This is where the drama starts.  You see, not everyone agrees where the ornaments should go.  I always wanted the angel (day 20) to go on top of the tree, but unfortunately, there are 19 ornaments that get a chance to go on the tree before then, and that gave my brother way too many opportunities to foil my plans.

You can’t hold spaces either.  For instance, if it was my year to put up the first ornament, and I wanted to put the trumpet up on the top to reserve a spot for the angel down the road, I couldn’t.  Once an ornament is placed, it cannot be moved.  The trumpet has some memories too.  After my weeping about how my brother would put the trumpet at the top every year just so I would get upset, she told him he couldn’t put the trumpet at the top anymore, so he then put the trumpet so it was blowing right into baby Jesus’ manger, which worried me that the noise would make the baby cry.  O, brother…

*Disclaimer…my brother’s constant teasing during this event is not the reason that my sister and I each made a calendar and my brother doesn’t have one.  He doesn’t have kids, and he didn’t spend the hours we did cutting out teeny pieces of felt for each and every ornament.  If you want the calendar, you have to do the work!

So this morning, Silje got to put the first ornament up, and read from the laminated reading that my sister made for me.  (We were always losing the readings growing up, so when we were working on it, she made us each laminated copies that were more official looking than the multiple-times-folded copy paper that was always floating around our house at Christmas time.)

Already, she has asked if the angel goes on top, and David has already insisted that when he gets the candy cane tomorrow, it’s going straight on top, and there’s nothing she can do about it.  And the tradition continues…