Christmas Corners

I thought it would be nice to share some of the little corners of our home. I've been too busy to post much here but things are going nicely at O Night Divine.

Here is the mantle. Don't tell my mum I lit the candles before Christmas Eve, she is a nut on the subject of not lighting Nativity candles until Christmas Eve. I usually don't but I wanted to for the picture.

The Nativity set was partly my maternal grandparents and partly my parents from when they first got married. None of the pieces were made later than the early 1960's. It's chipped and wonky but I love it.

Closer up.

The tree, which only went up yesterday. I spent all day keeping Brendan off it. Notice the tilt? Yeah, it's days are numbered.   It stands in the center of the living room and can be seen beautifully from the street. Of course ten minutes after I snapped this the tree went dark, I know not why. Sigh.

 
 This is my solution to keeping my Nana's mercury glass ornaments safe.  No tree for them. Not for another ten years or so.

This is our little kitchen tree. I was inspired to do this by Chris. She does one every year and hangs the cutest gingerbread men on her tree. Not to be too much of a copycat the little ones decided to do woodland animals so we have gingerbread squirrels, bunnies, moose, bear, and somewhere in the house is a bag with a few little birds from the craft store to add. Notice the lights on the top went out.  There is a conspiracy afoot.

This is our Advent table. I am sorry it's so dark but the picture during the day was too bright due to the window behind it.  It's a set of three trees I bought in Joanne's a few years ago after Christmas. They were mega cheap.  The smallest one went dark the first week of Advent. This is the theme of my Advent apparently. This is where our Advent wreath lives during the day, away from little hands. Notice the tilting candles? Yup broken. I got tired of replacing them.  Behind that on book stands are our Advent read-a-louds. In front of the trees are our take-a-long mangers. To the right of that is a little collection of Nativity sets I have. Again away from little hands.

On Saturday night Kelli and Erin were in our parish's production of Like Winter Waiting a beautiful Advent play.The play was lovingly dedicated to Ryan's memory and part of the proceeds were donated to Autism Speaks in his name. How blessed are we in our parish?

Erin played John the Baptist, a role that was originally intended to go to Ryan last year. His friend Chris took it then (and did it so beautifully). This year Erin rocked it. Brought me to tears. 

She plays John the Baptist in utero singing with joy about the coming of the Savior. You can hear part of  the song here. I couldn't film it because I was so overcome. Kelli played a shepherd and an angel and she did a beautiful job. So many friends and people who sang with Ryan were in the play and everyone of them did an amazing job. We are so blessed here. I don't have a nice picture of Kelli since the shepherds mostly were out of my view and when they were in view their backs were to the audience.  This is the beautiful tableau at the end.

The shepherd with the song book is Chris, Ryan's friend. And mine. The kneeling king with the white hood is Dan  Chris' husband.

So now that we are no longer deep in rehearsals this week is slow down and enjoy week.  I cleaned like mad today, tomorrow and Wednesday is for baking and then the Bonny Blue House should be ready. We will be crafting and praying all week to ready our hearts and confession on Friday to ready our souls.

God bless and keep you dear friends.