A New Tradition

When I was a kid we had a fun advent calendar that I always enjoyed.  It had windows to open every day as Christmas approached.  I didn't really understand what Advent was at the time, but now I appreciate Advent much more as we are teaching Isaiah.

I decided that I wanted to make an Advent calendar for our family, so I searched online for some ideas.  I saw calendars involving chocolate or candy or windows or gifts, but eventually I came up with this idea of my own, which worked well with the supplies that I had:

I had some left over green material from Isaiah's Peter Pan costume that I used as a background for some stars.  Ideally I would have liked to have made the stars from material, but because it took me a while to get my act together, paper will just have to do for this year!  Naturally the stars are numbered for each day, starting with the first Sunday of Advent.  In case you counted, that's why we have 26 stars, not just 25 like most purchasable calendars.  And aren't we fortunate to have a huge carpet to hang it on with pins so that we don't have to put holes in the wall! (and if you can pick up on my sarcasm, you are quite intuitive) :)

Thomas did a wonderful job making an Advent and Christmas song book for us.  He included Scripture passages for us to read, usually one for the morning and another for the evening.  We've enjoyed singing some familiar songs and learning some new ones that he found for us!

(please forgive the blurry picture, it didn't look that bad on my viewfinder)

After our evening reading we get to put a small star with the passage(s) that we read that day on top of the big star in order to cover up the number.

Being far from home and everything we grew up with is difficult at this time of year, but being able to make these new traditions for our family helps make the time very special.  What are some of your favorite holiday traditions?