Advent

Here are just a few pictures from Advent last month.  I struggle a little bit with Christmas because it is so commercial in our culture.  I want the focus to be on Jesus' birth and not Santa/gifts.  However, I too spend a lot of time thinking about gifts and shopping and stress out in the weeks leading up to Christmas.  This is something I want to continue to work on.  As I read recently in our Catholic newspaper, the good thing about Christmas is that is comes every year so I have another chance to make it better this year.

Someone's been playing with the nativity set.  I don't put baby Jesus in the nativity until Christmas, so Eliana decided to help me out.

Note who has come to join the nativity this day - Jack the bunny and Eliana's horses.  Lots of toys got to join in the fun in the weeks leading up to Christmas.

Decorating our little tree.  It was just the right size for our kids.

Making Christmas cookies.  This was a new tradition started for us this year by the request of David.  On the day I decided to make the cookies, our oven went on the fritz, so the cookies didn't cook quite right.  However, we still managed to eat them all.  Eliana helped me make them.  William just helped eat them.

Wild Lights at the zoo.

Columbus Zoo has quite a display of Christmas lights each year.  The kids were much more into the animals and animal statues than the actual lights, but that is probably a good thing.