A handmade Advent

I told you last time that we're trying to keep it simple around here as we prepare for Christmas, and it's true. It's hard work, though, being simple. Doesn't that sound counter-intuitive? Yet here I am, struggling to focus on what is most important.

For one, we want to have a lovely but simply decorated home. I always liked the song "People Look East" during Advent but this year it has meant so much more to us:

Make your house fair as you are able
Trim the hearth and set the table

It never really struck me how making one's home beautiful would be a way of anticipating Christmas until I had my own family. Sure I loved when we started decorating when I was a kid, but I never thought of it as a 'spiritual' preparation; it just got me excited for when Santa would come. Um....

Now because we're not loaded and I don't want to go ransack a big-box store for decorations made in China (or anything made in China for that matter), a lot of our decorations will be homemade. This takes more effort, but becomes such a fun collaborative effort for our family! Baking homemade ornaments, searching the roadside for pretty pinecones, and so on.

Also, again, out of my desire to not purchase anything from a mall or a Walmart this year, almost all our gifts will be homemade. This too takes a lot of work and discipline. But oh friends, it is so much more prayerful and relaxed sitting in my own home with a sewing project and a cup of tea than running into Toys R Us or other store where people literally have gotten trampled in a desperate attempt to get the "it" toy. (As a sidebar: when I was very visibly pregnant with Noah, I passed out in a line-up at Toys R Us during Christmas shopping. And no one offered me help. Not another shopper or a staff-member. Please tell me, friends, that you would help a pregnant woman if she collapsed in a store, or at least ask her if she was okay?!)

So while our 'simple' preparations are more time-consuming, I find myself so much more happy doing things this way.Our not very Christmas-y looking view on our recent Christmas crafting morning. But boy I love those tissue-paper stars by Erin!

Mixing the flour for some ornaments. A delightfully tactile experience for a sweet creative child

When I asked Noah what he wanted for Christmas this year, he exclaimed "Dough!"
A favourite toy of his, to be sure.

All cut out, ready to be baked

And painted!


Cheerful, but not well-photographed, applesauce ornaments. They smell heavenly!

At long last, a work of toddler art!

I'll continue to post more about our Christmas preparations as they happen, but for now, I leave you with one more link.

If you, too, feel the pull to abandon the malls this Christmas, you too question spending lots of money of people who already have so much to begin with, consider the Chalice gift catalogue.

Patrick and I are personal friends with the creator and founder, and he is a wonderful priest and man. And I can tell you, Chalice is the most responsible, and truly Catholic aid to the developing world organization out there. This past year, 93% of their donations went to actual people in need; only 7% to overhead. Remarkable.

A goat for a hungry family in Africa provides milk, butter, cheese all with little maintenance.
A bed or mattress for an orphan in Ukraine might be the first "Christmas gift" he ever receives.
A sewing machine for a woman in Haiti might be the source of income she needs to keep her out of prostitution.

‘Truly I tell you,
whatever you did for one of the least
of these brothers of mine,
you did for me." Matthew 25:40