Advent

It's Advent . . . 

Four Sundays and four weeks before Christmas.

Advent means "coming" in Latin.

And we await the coming of Jesus into the World.

It's our time to prepare for Christmas

And remember the real meaning of Christmas

Preparation begins with the Christmas china

For eleven months of the year it lives on the top shelf of this cabinet.

Totally unaccessible unless to get out the "big" ladder

But that's okay . . . for we don't use it.

Out comes the big ladder, down comes the china

And up goes the blue and white on the lower shelf

We forego using the Johnson Brothers Indies in December

because it lives on that top shelf!

And china that's been sitting in a cabinet for eleven months 

needs washing!

Because it's real china, it's real hand washing!

Blue and white Indies is on the top shelf --

Christmas china is on the lower shelf

We also get out the Advent wreath

One candle for each Sunday in Advent

Lit each Sunday just before dinner

Then we head outside!

A fresh wreath on the door!

And greens and red berries in pots and boxes

Some are purchased . . . 

Some are gathered in the woods

In the front urns

In the back boxes

And in the front window box

With greens in the urns and boxes and the big lighted wreath on the front porch

And candles in the windows, Linderhof looks quite festive for the season . . .

And this afternoon, I took time for a pot of tea

And two gingerbread muffins

freshly baked

(gingerbread muffins because we have new neighbors and I baked a batch

to welcome them to the neighborhood)

We also decorated the mantles with greens

No tree, no poinsettia . . . 

yet

We decorate slowly

This week, we'll get the Nativity set out and the German pyramid

The tree will come the following week

A freshly cut tree

And Scott City will make it's appearance and take over the breakfast room!