{pretty, happy, funny, real} Advent is for making.
~ Capturing the context of contentment in everyday life ~
Every Thursday, here at Like Mother, Like Daughter!
In more Advent musings, I’d like to suggest that instead of spending a lot of time doing activities that attempt to explain Advent to the children, how about channeling their making towards actual gifts?
Since candles are important to our daily life here, we like to have pretty boxes for the matches (this was Habou’s idea). All you need are those craft boxes you find at JoAnn’s or Michaels (they are made of cardboard) or any nice small box with a lid. You need acrylic craft paint, fine brushes, and matches and the strike plate off the original matchbox (just cut it off with scissors). You need a way to attach the latter to the former (glue). Ours started out with very primitive designs back in the day and ended up this way.
You can put the strike plate under the lid or under the box itself (necessitating covering the box with its lid, probably safer). You can see that every so often we replace the strike plate — these boxes have lasted! They can give their match box with a little decorated votive candle or lantern.
My kids made tremendous amounts of gifts, mainly due to Habou’s crafting drive. She always made sure that they had paper, pencils, glue, and really every possible tool necessary to produce anything that might come to mind.
Thus, we’ve always had a craft shelf/cupboard/closet (depending on where we lived) that was full of creative possibilities. Like, every woodburning, stamping, stenciling, painting, drawing, gluing, puttying, etc. etc. possibility!
I admit that this drives me a bit batty. I personally love to make things. I’m not so big on getting small children who also need to be clothed, bathed, and fed to make things as an activity for its own sake. But I am willing to overcome my impatience to facilitate and direct (that bit is key — teach them — while maybe learning in the process) their urge to arrive at the final product. I’m definitely willing to let someone else gather them together and craft with them (which is what she did when I couldn’t, which was often and awesome — see if you can find someone like that!).
It takes forethought (until it just takes a [hopefully well organized] closet full of stuff). It takes setting aside the afternoon while the baby is napping — not always easy to do!
To that end, I’ve put together a Pinterest board of crafts that actually make sense. I won’t steer you wrong by pinning junky stuff to make for its own sake. Anything on there is useful and/or genuinely pretty. They will need some collecting and possibly purchasing of materials and tools by you beforehand, but can be done in an afternoon once they’ve gotten the directions. We’ll add to it as time goes on — and do look at my other boards while you’re at it — you may find other inspiration there as well, depending on the ages of the children we’re talking about.
Today’s {pretty, happy, funny, real} is a peek at my past week’s fun with grandchildren.
Rosie came with her family for Capt. P’s sister’s wedding. As you will recall, the family of Capt. P are our good friends and live in the next town over (as we say here). So it was a big event for all of us. Deirdre did the bride’s hair…
Maybe we will come up with more actual shots of Ellen’s beautiful and fun wedding (good thing we weren’t in charge of the photos!) — you can see a glimpse on my Instagram and also on Rosie’s.
For now, just a few shots of these darlings having a great time together. (As you will also remember, Rosie and Deirdre have had “cousin twins” twice in a row now. Nora and “Peabody” are 3 weeks apart, and Molly and “Finnabee” are 2 weeks apart!)
We loved having them together!
My little Advent series so far:
Premature or Overwhelming Christmas Parties
Celebrate All Twelve Days of Christmas!
Today begin the O Antiphons. Jennifer Gregory Miller has a good post on Catholic Culture about these last days leading up to Christmas, with their beautiful expression in the Liturgy.
(On a less liturgical note, many have asked me if I have a button for Amazon — they very generously want to shop via our affiliate link! If you click on this Amazon button for your shopping needs, as well as the others above, a little change will be thrown in the LMLD bucket. We will be really grateful!)
Share your Advent makings with us this week if you can!
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