For me Christmas used to start the day after Thanksgiving. I don't observe Thanksgiving anymore, (and not cause I'm not thankful, people!) and after I had Jack and Lu 30 something days of Christmas seemed like to much. A month can be a lifetime to a young child, and by the time the big day finally arrived the bloom was off. Around that time I was introduced to a Waldorf inspired home lifestyle and we embraced the season of Advent. I think now I may like it even more than Christmas itself. The waiting is good.
We observe Advent with the traditional lighting of candles (one for each week) and use indications from Steiner about our focus for each of the weeks. More on this later. I wrap and number each nativity figure/object and our creche slowly and beautifully fills as the days pass. I really love holiday books and have more than 30 of them. It used to be overwhelming to have them all out and we often missed reading ones we really liked. Now I wrap enough books to last us till Christmas and one is unwrapped each night in time for the bedtime story.
So, my biggest prep effort for Advent is wrapping all those little figures and all those books! Plus making sure they get numbered in the right order. For once I'm ready for this process and will start tomorrow night, instead of late the night before!
