First Sunday in Advent - The Advent Wreath

From the readings today-
Jesus said to his disciples:
“As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.
 In those days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day that Noah entered the ark.
They did not know until the flood came and carried them all away.
So will it be also at the coming of the Son of Man.
Two men will be out in the field; one will be taken, and one will be left.
Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken, and one will be left.

Therefore, stay awake! For you do not know on which day your Lord will come.
Be sure of this: if the master of the house had known the hour of night when the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and not let his house be broken into.
So too, you also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.” -Matthew 24:37-44

I have shared before how we celebrate this ritual in our home
This year was  a little different as we still live in a house that does not allow us to put up our lovely hanging wreath we have used for many years.
So we have this small table wreath which we used for the first time last year.

As we also set up our Christmas tree today we had a little tradition of having a small snack afterwards and s drink of Wassail.
I used to make this for the first Sunday in Advent when the children were small along with my Eggnog that I now only make on Christmas Eve.

As we had been travelling over the weekend to our oldest son's graduation form Uni and to pick up our oldest daughter at her years end studies I did not have tome to bake any cookies to go with this but we did have some special store bought cookies to go with it.

Before we ate or drank these goodies we also began our tradition of Lighting the Advent Wreath.
We use typically the Advent prayer for lighting the candles from the same book we use for most of our family special Liturgical Prayers.

This year Saxon was the first to light the candle

As he was lighting we had one little girls who had had enough of waiting the whole day and was reaching across for one of those delectable cookies.
I am sure you never have any of those children do you?

And so as our very busy day was reaching the evening stages we paused and spent a few minutes in our simple traditions that define Advent for us  year after year.

Blessings to you and your homes,