Fun Facts about Advent Calendars

It is hard to believe it is time to pull out the Advent calendar. I thought I would continue our Fun Facts Series and share some fun facts about Advent calendars today since it is the first day to open a door on yours. Be sure to check out our Fun Facts about Advent. 

Fun Facts about Advent Wreaths

It is hard to believe it is time to pull out the Advent wreath. I thought I would continue our Fun Facts Series and share some fun facts about Advent wreaths today. Be sure to check out our Fun Facts about Advent. 

Advent Wreaths

Advent is one of my favorite times of the year. Advent in Western Christianity is the time to prepare oneself for the birth of Christ or for Christmas. It is a time I think we need to do less and spend more time with friends, family and God. However our society is one of making it all about the parties, the sales and the things that must be done and often one does not enjoy or prepare as well as we should.

In the church Advent starts the fourth Sunday before Christmas, December 25th. So Sunday is the first day of Advent. An Advent wreath is often used in churches as well as homes to help with the celebration of Advent. Each week a new candle is lit to represent different parts of the coming of Christ. The first candle is a purple one and is hope, the second also purple is peace, the third is pink and is for joy, and the fourth is purple and is for love. The candle in the middle is white and is for Christ. It is traditionally lit on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day.

Typically the Advent wreath is made with evergreens. I remember my mother always having one with greens. She actually had a pottery wreath holder that held water for the greens with holes for the greens around it and the four candle holders built in. I bought the metal one pictured above and do not add the greens since we do not have a real tree. However there are many simple ones you can make as well. For example, pictured below is an Advent wreath we made at church during the Advent Workshop a few years ago. It is a Styrofoam wreath wrapped in green crepe paper and then with fake greens and berries glued on and the candles just pushed into the wreath.

The evergreens symbolize everlasting life and the circle symbolizes God's love with no beginning and no ending. (Source) Purple of Advent represents penance in the church. (Source) The pink candle represents joy. The tradition of the pink or rose colored candle for the third Sunday comes from the Catholic Church when the Pope was known to give a rose at this mass to help break the solemn mood of Advent. (Source)

There are many crafts for children having to do with Advent and Advent wreaths. Here are a few I found.

• Advent Wreath Craft in two sizes from First School (See above)
• Coloring Pages of Advent Wreaths and Bible Stories from First School
• Advent Wreath Coloring page from Catholic Mom
• Advent Paper Chain (with different activities for each day in Advent for a child to do) from Catholic Mom (See links on the bottom of Resource List)
• An adorable paper hand print Advent Wreath from The Catholic Toolbox
• Loyola Press has a great  hand-out tutorial for a wreath as well as history, readings, etc.
• Activity Village has an activity wreath where you can color or print in color and add the candles each week.

Another favorite part of Advent is the Advent Calendar. I will share more about this tomorrow. The calendar starts on December 1st. Hazel opened hers today and got a Mary story stone. I have all the Nativity story stones in hers. I try to give her something to play with as we tell the story.

Fun Facts about Advent

Now that Thanksgiving is over it is time to get ready for Christmas!! Advent begins a bit later because of how the dates fall this year. In the western world it begins on Sunday this year. In honor of that I thought I would share a bit about Advent, its history and other fun facts!

Advent Calendar Round-Up

As I posted the other day, Advent is one of my favorite times. I have wonderful childhood memories of my Advent calendars as well as the Advent wreath on our dining room table. For my post on Advent wreaths visit here. However here is one that Hazel made this morning. It is made from a printable at First School.

A few years ago, my parents gave us this beautiful wooden Advent calendar for a Christmas gift. I absolutely love it and Hazel gets so excited to open a door. Last year I filled it with needle-felted nativity figures and this year we filled it with Nativity story stones.

Now when we were teenagers, my mother made my cousins an adorable quilted Advent calendar. I am hoping to make one at some point. I bought the fabric last year, but haven't gotten around to it. So sometime in the future I will make one. However there are many simple and creative ones that you can make that have been shared the past month or so on Sharing Saturday. Here are some of them.

First two I couldn't get pictures from:
From Life on the Gravelly Road has a wonderful homemade one with each card having a scripture reading and a fun activity.

From Mummy Mummy Mum! has a wonderful felt ornament tree Advent calendar.

Now for some that I could take pictures:

1) From Little Wonders' Day: Easy Door Advent Calendar
2) From Wesens-Art: Star Advent Calendar
3) From Making Boys Men: Magnetic Advent Calendar
4) From S.O.S. Mom: Advent Calendar
5) From Wesens-Art: Advent Calendar
6) From Living Montessori Now: 40+ Advent Activities Round-Up

A Few More...
Here is one from an Advent Workshop at our church last year:

For each of the 24 days before Christmas you glue on a holly leaf to make a wreath.

From Catholic Mom: 2012 Printable Advent Chain each day the chain has a kind activity for the child to do and the instructions suggest paper color to tie in the colors of Advent.

Do you have any more DYI Advent Calendar ideas? I would love for you to leave a link in the comments!! Or even better share at Sharing Saturday!

Advent Calendars -- Start of Advent

December first is the start of Advent this year. It seems fitting since most Advent calendars start on the first. But this year, the first is also the first Sunday in Advent when you light the first candle of the Advent wreath. I personally love Advent. It is a time to prepare. The church uses the color purple for Advent. We are preparing for the coming of Christ. Now my parents gave us a beautiful wooden Advent calendar a couple of years ago. The only problem is we have to fill it each year. This year I decided to go with a crafty theme. I always try to focus it on the nativity to make sure the true meaning is getting through to Hazel and that it is not about gifts and commercialism.

This year I am organizing a huge event at my church for next Saturday. It is called a Night in Bethlehem. We will have a live nativity (with real sheep) as well as a marketplace full of crafts for kids to make to see what it was like in Biblical time. My focus this week will mostly be on this, but I will be trying to get some posts up. Anyway, I needed to find some peg dolls for one of the crafts and discovered Casey's Wood Products. They have very reasonable prices for wood products and you can buy the wood projects by the individual. I bought some nativity figures for Hazel. I am using these this year in her Advent calendar with a few other added crafts.

I am going to let her decorate them if she wants to. However for the first I found this great miniature Advent wreath craft. I wanted to use purple candles so they would be like the ones we have in our big wreath, so I "painted" some white birthday candles with melted crayons. I saw how to do it on Catholic Icing: Make Pink and Purple Advent Candles.

The best part is that we had all the supplies at home. I invaded Steve's tool room for the nuts and of course the recycling bin for a lid.  I am going to let Hazel make it tomorrow. I just put it together for a quick picture.

Since the first candle is for hope, we will make a hope craft on the second day. For her  calendar I printed out the themes my church uses and put one in on each Sunday (or Monday for the first one) so we will have ornaments for each theme. Love and Peace are easy ones to find. We actually have a peace dove ornament that we made from salt clay a couple of years ago and I made a quick beaded heart ornament when Hazel was making beaded candy canes.

The hope and joy ornaments will be a bit harder. I picked up a joy rubber stamp at Joann the other day for $1. I may do some clay ornaments similar to what we did for our Christmas in Kenya craft with the stamp. For hope I am thinking about doing something like this snowball ornament on Just Crafty Enough but use the word hope instead of joy. I have some letter stickers and may try them instead of vinyl. I also love the idea of twig ornaments that you can see on First Home Love Life. If you want other ideas for ornaments and Christmas decorations you can see what I have pinned in my Christmas board.

Now for Hazel's Advent calendar I try to make the gifts tell the story of Christmas. I always start with an angel, so I bought some angel peg dolls. This is what will be in her door for the 3rd. We will make an angel from it and share it with you. The fourth will be the Mary figure (alternative craft at First School) and the fifth will be Joseph. Then on the sixth we will do another angel craft. I think we will be doing the Easy Paperclip Angel Ornament from Crafty Journal. Steve promised to bring home the paperclips for me since he has some at work and not at his desk at home. If you want other ideas for angel crafts, I have an Angels board. (I started this board when we were participating in an angel swap for inspiration.) I should also mention Activity Village has some alternative crafts for the entire Nativity including a nativity mobile.

For the next day we will do a donkey craft. Even though a donkey is not mentioned in the Bible it is in so many of the stories, that I like to include it. I bought these clothespins at Casey's Wood Products, but Oriental Trading also has a similar donkey craft. After the donkey we will do the star and then the sheep and shepherds. Then we will do the camels and wisemen. We will also make a popsicle stick manger. Finally on the 23rd we will make one of the simple nativity ornaments I have pinned and the 24th she will get the "manger" which Casey's Wood Products called the bathtub since they did not have any mangers left, I bought something that would work.

That is our plan for this year's Advent calendar. Another idea I had was inspired by the Christ the Savior is Born Advent Calendar on Sunlit Pages. I went through our old Christmas cards and used a fancy punch to punch out nice pictures and/or words. I took a picture of four that could be used to represent the Advent themes. The idea was to put numbers on the back and add strings and hang them in similar fashion to her Advent calendar. You would get a nice picture for each day.  Perhaps that will get done next year.

For today, this is all we are going to share. If you want more ideas for Advent calendars please check out my pins in my Advent board. There are many various ideas there! I would love to hear what you do for Advent. Happy Advent!!

Advent Week 4: Love

Before I begin this post's content, I want to share that I just updated my Winter Solstice post with the best book to read!! We did not receive it from the library before the original post. The addition is towards the end of the post. Now onto our Advent post.

This is the fourth week of Advent. We light our final purple candle. As you light each candle you remember how Jesus brought us hope, peace, joy and now love. Some Advent wreaths have a white candle in the middle. This candle is for Christ and is lit either Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. Now love is such an important theme. There are so many Bible scriptures you can think of to go with love..."...The greatest of these is love." 1 Corinthians 13:13. We included God Gave Us Love by Lisa Tawn Bergren in our books to read today. I feel this is a perfect book to read to explain the theme.

For those that do not know this series of books, Little Cub learns about God from different people in her family. In this one, she is with her grandfather. They talk about how God wants us to love everyone. They also talk about how there are different kinds of love and the greatest love comes from God. And yes, they mention God sending is only Son to us. 

When we did our clay ornaments last week, we also made some love ones.  We used love rubber stamps to get the words on them. 

The other craft is to make heart ornaments from pipe cleaners and tri-beads. They are very easy. Put the beads in whatever pattern (or no pattern) onto the pipe cleaner. Then bend and twist the ends of the pipe cleaner to make a heart. Now you can add a ribbon or just hang it as we did.

Update on our Advent Calendar Crafts:

Donkey Ornament

Hazel was working on the wisemen today. I did the camel with the wisemen while she made the wisemen. I also glued the stable together for her. I like how they are coming out and think she is doing a wonderful job. We added some white wool to the sheep and the shepherds. Hazel decided the wisemen needed gold and silver and used glitter glue. She has been really enjoying this year's Advent calendar. 

How did you celebrate Advent this year?

For more on our Advent:

• Advent Craft Calendar
• Advent Wreaths
• Advent Week 1: Hope
• Advent Week 2: Peace
• Advent Week 3: Joy
• Advent Calendar Round-Up

Christmas Crafts Round-Up from 2011 - 2013

Last week I did a round-up of some of our favorite Christmas books that really share the story of Christmas or the giving spirit. This week I thought I would share a round-up of the Christmas crafts we have done since Crafty Moms Share started. But before we share our past crafts here is a clip angel we made for one of Hazel's angel crafts from her Advent calendar this year. I was inspired by the Easy Paperclip Angel Ornament on Crafty Journal that I saw on Pinterest.

We used glittery pipe cleaners instead of ribbon and wooden beads instead of pearls.

I think the pipe cleaner made it easier for Hazel to do on her own. We made two before breakfast one morning. Now as I was going through my Christmas crafts of the past, I discovered I had too many for just one collage (Picmonkey wouldn't let me put them in one), so I made four. Two are general Christmas crafts, one is nativity crafts and one is "gingerbread" house crafts.

1) Felt  Peace Dove (Advent Week 2: Peace)
2) Paper Star Bag (Christmas Prep)
3) Felt Covered Ornaments
4) More Felt Covered Ornaments (Simple Christmas Ornaments/Decorations)
5) Snow Globes (apparently I didn't share these before, but they have liquid in them)
6) Painted Wooden Ornaments
7)  Painted Cardboard/Paper Mache Ornaments
8) Paper Advent Wreath
9) Coffee Cup Christmas Tree
10) Coffee Cup Angel
11) Kenyan-inspired Clay Ornaments
12) Kenyan-inspired Wire Ornament
13) Simple Christmas Cards (Operation Christmas)
14) Felt St. Nicholas
15) Felt Candy Cane Mouse (Holiday Stroll)
16)  Hope Ornament (Hope--First Week of Advent)

1) Felt Sheep
2) Our Salt Dough Ornaments
3) Angels, Angels Everywhere and Angels with a Toddler and  Some Angels
4) Pasta Wreath
5) Pasta Tree
6) Needle Felted Dala Horse
7) Needle Felted Elf
8)  Mini Advent Wreath (Advent Calendars -- Start of Advent)
9) Popsicle Stick & Button Trees
10) Button Tree Card
11) Straw Christmas Tree (Christmas Crafts for Kids ebook Review)
12) Snow Globes (Busy Day Getting Ready for Christmas)
13) Jingle Bell Crafts
14) Punched Paper Chain
15) Felt Ornaments
16) Fruit Candy Cane (Christmas Crafts for Kids ebook Review)
17) Toddler Fun Tongue Depressor Elf
18) Stick Reindeer (A Lovely Visit)
19) Christmas Book Ornaments (A Lovely Visit)
20) Beaded Wreath Pin
21) Winter Flower Fairies
22) Poinsettia Fairy
23) Painted Pine Cones
24) Applesauce and Cinnamon Ornaments
25) More Salt Dough Ornaments

Foam Trees and Gingerbread Men

Pine Cone Christmas Trees & Busy Weekend Slow Down

Beaded Candy Canes

Beaded Candy Canes

Nativity Crafts

1)  Nativity Bracelet (Oriental Trading Christmas Craft Kit Review)
2) Foam Nativity Kit
3) Cloth Nativity
4) Toilet Paper Roll Nativity (Focus on the Nativity and
5) Wooden Nativity Pieces (Advent Week 2: Peace and Advent Calendars--Start of Advent)
6) Craft Stick & Felt Nativity (Focus on the Nativity and Busy Weekend)
7) Felt Nativity Ornament
8) Needle Felted Nativity (Sharing Christmas and Needle Felting)
9) Treble Clef Savior (Hope--First Week of Advent)
10) Gingerbread Graham Cracker Creche (Hope--First Week of Advent)
11) Wooden Nativity Craft (Oriental Trading Christmas Craft Kit Review)
12) Nativity Earrings (Oriental Trading Christmas Craft Kit Review)
13) Colored Wooden Nativity (Operation Christmas)
14) Nativity Story Stones
15) Printable Nativity (Focus on the Nativity and Sharing Saturday with Free Printables)

1) Toddler "Gingerbread" House
2) Valentine's Day Gingerbread House
3) Valentine's Day Gingerbread House
4) Gingerbread Train
5) Christmas Prep 2012
6) Post Christmas Gingerbread House
7) Mortimer's Gingerbread House (Virtual Book Club for Kids: Mortimer's Christmas Manger)

Advent Week 3: Joy

Have you entered my current giveaway yet? Last day to enter is the 16th at midnight!

We are beginning the third week of Advent. The theme for this week is Joy. The joy Jesus brings the world. Now this week is special because it has the pink candle. Now last year I did a little research on Advent and Advent wreaths and discovered how the pink candle became pink. At one time Advent was a more solemn time similar to Lent. The Pope decided to lighten the mood on the third Sunday of Advent and passed out pink roses to his congregation. This became a tradition and eventually the candle was changed to pink to take on the rose tradition. (Source)

Our craft for the week of Joy is some clay ornaments. Since we had not made the Peace ornaments yet, we did those too. We also made some clay Hope ornaments (and Love) with the leftover clay. For Joy we used a star and used a "joy" rubber stamp. We used Sculpey polymer clay and had to bake them. I have my parents old toaster oven to bake polymer clay in since you should not use the same oven as you cook food in due to the fumes. 

For Peace we used our dove cookie cutter. Since we do not have a "peace" rubber stamp, we had to write it ourselves. We used one of the tools from Hazel's scratch paper. (We used this tool for the holes to hang the ornaments as well.)

I let Hazel write "Peace" herself.  Her spacing was off, but she did a good job. I guess my toaster oven burned the white clay a bit since they came out an orangy brown. I baked them on the correct temperature and for less time. Oh, well.

For Hope we used the star again. We also attempted to swirl the two colors together and was more successful than we had been for the Joy ones. We again had to write Hope ourselves and Hazel did her own. I am happy with how they came out. Now I need to add strings so we can hang them.

So now we get to light the third candle--the pink one. With each candle we remember the past themes. We have been leaving one of our ornaments by the candle to remind us.

I loving having them there! What are you doing to celebrate Advent?

For more on Advent check out:

• Advent Wreaths
• Week 2: Peace
• Week 1: Hope
• Advent Calendar Round-Up
• Our Craft Advent Calendar

Advent Week 2: Peace

Supplies

Yesterday was the second Sunday of Advent and we celebrate it as Peace. In Hazel's Advent calendar yesterday she opened to find a piece of white wool felt, white glitter clay and the word peace. I pulled out our dove cookie cutter to make these crafts. Since we had a bit of a crazy weekend, we have not finished them all, but did one this morning. We took the white felt, and I traced the cookie cutter in two pieces (the body and the wing). Then I attempted to write "Peace" on it, but it is not too clear. We glued the wing on and eventually will glue a ribbon on it.

For now we have put our Advent ornaments near the candles on the Advent wreath.

It helps remind us what each candle is for. We are planning on making a clay dove as well and I'm hoping to have Hazel try to "write" on it. We just have not had time yet to do this.

Hazel is loving the craft Advent calendar. She really is enjoying painting the wooden figures. We are a bit behind because of all the preparation I was doing at church for our Night in Bethlehem which went really well.  We still need to make our donkey ornament.

If you are looking for some other peace craft ideas or Advent craft ideas, check out Oriental Trading today and tomorrow they are running a special of free Shipping on Any Order PLUS a $10 eGift card with orders of $59 or more through 11:59 p.m. December 10, 2013 with the code FW50FS. (They have the same next Monday and Tuesday with the code FW51FW, and the 21st is the last day for ground shipping delivery by Christmas.)  Here is a search for Advent on their site. 

For Peace ornaments, they have the peace sign bag tag beaded craft (Steve does not like the peace sign, so we avoid it) and a peace sign ornament kit,  a foam peace ornament, inspirational jar craft (which includes "Christ is born" and "Joy to the world" as well as "Peace"), dove ornament kits (which include peace, love and joy) and I think my favorite is the Peace Prayer bracelet kit. If you want more ideas, you can also visit my Advent Pinterest Board.

For now, may Peace be with you and your family in this very busy season! If you are looking for more Advent ideas you can see our post on Hope last week and our Advent calendar post for this year.