Friday Focus 03/12/21 – Advent

Advent is here and the countdown to Christmas has officially begun. Sophie and Thomas have been very excited at getting to have chocolate from their Advent calendars each morning (although Thomas is somewhat unimpressed that he can only open one window each day!) We’ve been enjoying sitting together in the evening and snuggling up with a Christmas story from our Advent book calendar.

 

The word 'Advent' with the 'd' and the 't' drawn as Advent candles

 

Advent is a time of preparation and there has certainly been plenty of that this week! Preparing posters for Christmas services, updating church websites, wrapping presents, writing cards, planning Christmas services… If someone could just magic up a few more hours in the day so I can get everything done, that would be great!

 

What I’ve been grateful for this week:

 

Thomas holding Sophie's hand outside; a selection of Sondheim music books on my piano; Sophie and Thomas playing table-top games at church; Thomas with a paper bowl manger and a toilet-roll baby Jesus; a selection of Christmas books inside red starry fabric bags; me, Sophie and Thomas snuggled on the sofa reading a Christmas book; Sophie with her tiny snowman - "#365daysofgratitude 2021 - Week 48"

 

  • Day 330 – I am grateful for immunisations but glad this is the last planned jab for a few years!

 

  • Day 331 – I am grateful for all the wonderful lyrics, music and shows that Stephen Sondheim created.

 

  • Day 332 – I am grateful for a fun games afternoon at church.

 

  • Day 333 – I am grateful for time doing some Christmas crafts with Thomas.

 

  • Day 334 – I am grateful that I’ve finished making all the fabric bags for the Christmas books in time for our book advent to start tomorrow.

 

  • Day 335 – I am grateful for snuggles on the sofa reading Christmas stories together.

 

  • Day 336 – I am grateful for time to play in the snow before school and just enough of it for a teeny-tiny snowman! Sophie has called it Jessica.

 

 

Other things that have made me smile this week:

  • Watching Sophie in her end-of-term performance at her drama group.

 

  • Thomas wanting to bring a Christmas book when we visited Jessica’s forever bed. It was one she loved when she was his age.

Thomas with his Christmas book resting on the carving of Jessica at her forever bed, giving the top of her head a kiss

 

Word of the Week linky

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

32 thoughts on “Friday Focus 03/12/21 – Advent

  1. I so used to love Advent when I was part of a church family (I’ve not found a church I felt I belonged to since we moved house) I’m really hoping we get our outside carol service this year, we get hot chocolate to keep us warm. I adore that photo of Thomas at Jessica’s forever bed with a book. It melted my heart. x

    1. Fingers crossed that the carol service goes ahead. I don’t know how much Thomas understands about who Jessica is but he’s always lovely when we visit her forever bed x

  2. Ahh! I remember arguments with my two when it came to advent calendars. They always wanted to open more than one day. lol
    Great photos. Your book advent looks fab and it looks like Sophie had fun in the snow. x

    1. Lol, it is hard having to wait for the next day! Thomas is getting used to it now. It was lovely to get a bit of snow, Sophie loved it.

  3. Advent has certainly crept up and is keeping us all busy. I am doing Vlogmas so that’s added to everything else!
    Loving the idea of snuggling up with books and cuddles too. Have a great weekend ahead.

  4. Ah yes, opening doors early. We ued to open ours up, but we were a bit older than Thomas. Good going on the book bags. That’s a lot to make.

    1. It was a lot to make! I’m very glad they’re all done and I hopefully won’t have to make any more of them!

  5. So cute that Thomas wants to open more than one window on the advent calendar. I know how he feels, I’m very tempted to open all windows on my M&S beauty calendar.
    And it’s so sweet that Thomas wanted to share his book with Jessica.
    Snuggling with the book together is the best!

    1. It is so hard having to wait for the next day. He’s getting used to having to wait now though.

    1. It has felt very festive. I didn’t think we were going to get any snow at all so it was a nice surprise to get some even if it was just a tiny amount.

  6. I used to have to hide our chocolate advent calendars from my boys or they’d open all the windows and eat them!

  7. I have a similar problem with Harry so I have only been filling one box at a time otherwise he would eat the whole calendar when I wasn’t looking! Yay for mini snowmen, we didn’t get any unfortunately but the boys are ever hopeful. Beautiful photo of Thomas at Jessica’s forever bed.

  8. That’s lovely your doing a book advent, I never did that with mine when they were little but i think its a really sweet idea! Sounds like a nice week and even better with a sprinkling of snow.

  9. You had more snow than us! Glad you were able to make a snowman. I wish I had done an advent book calendar with my kids when they were little. #project365

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.