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Email a FriendI want to make my own Advent Wreath this year. My husband is very nervous with candles and usually blows the candles WAY before I am ready to have them extinguished. So this year, in order to hopefully give him some peace of mind, I have bought 4 of those candles that are in tall, skinny, glass jars in the grocery stores (3 lavender and one pink)and I am looking for a circular wooden frame that I can attach them to. What I have in mind is to nail 4 small tins to the board and then place the candles into those. I used a can of Mexican chilles in a chicken enchilada dish today and it is almost perfect in size, so now I need to make that dish 3 more times in the next 2 weeks of make a huge batch and invite a lot of people over. I looked in “Michaels” today and saw wooden frames for door wreaths but they were too big. Does anyone have any ideas. I don’t want to use battery candles. It just does not have the same effect. If it is more appropriate for me to post this elsewhere on this site, please let me know. Thank you very much
Attitude of Gratitude and Avoiding a Commercialized Christmas
Posted by Lisa Hendey in News on Thursday, November 17, 2011 10:49 PM
This week on the Faith & Family Live Cast (click here to listen or click on the player above), I’m joined by Kate Wicker and Sarah Reinhard for a wonderful conversation on the upcoming holiday season. In our first segment, we look at the “gratefultweet” phenomenon and other ways to cultivate an attitude of gratitude in ourselves and our children.
This week’s Faith & Family Feature product is the National Catholic Youth Conference. You can listen to last week’s podcast for more information, but stay tuned for ways you can participate in this year’s event from the comfort of your own home. There will be livestreaming of many of the presentations, especially those in the “parenting track” so that F&F Live readers can benefit from the amazing speakers and presenters this year. For free! Find details and a schedule of the events here.
In our final segment, we discuss the current trend of big box stores opening for “Black Friday” business in the evening hours of Thanksgiving, and other trends that commercial the Christmas season. How do you handle your Christmas shopping so that you are able to give lovingly to family and friends and yet maintain the spirituality of the Advent season? Kate mentions Amazon Mom, a great service for families with young children.
We would love to have your feedback. You can call and leave us a message on our listener feedback line at 1-413-FAITH-55 (or 1-413-324-8455). Leave us a comment, ask a question, make a suggestion or share your thoughts on this or other podcasts we’ve shared. We’d love to hear from you!
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We use a wire frame from AC Moore craft store and put either pinecones or artificial greens around it and regular candles—-husband also always nervous. We just light candle at beginning of dinner each night and use a simple advent book we got a mass many years ago when our 1st child was a baby. I try to have it stay lit throughout dinner (sometimes on a side table or counter rather than on the dinner table but within sight). Even if it is just the first few moments I think it sets the tone for the meal and is a good active reminder of the season.
You could just paint outside of your cans and glue/nail to a wooden circle you cut yourself from plywood or perhaps a round wooden trivet. I like that your candles are in the glass holders to keep the hot wax from melting down—-that is a safety move itself. We just need to have ours away from little hands that could knock ours over or wagging tails of our pets!
We should think of Christ who did not a place to lay his head. He had no luxuries. We should try to lead a simple life style avoiding unnecessary luxuries We have to share with the underprivileged and utterly poor. However we think how more luxurious and glittering the Christmas celebrations can be made. This is a matter we have to think about.
Some of our anti-commercial holiday actions:
We light our advent wreath each evening at the beginning of dinner.
A basket of holiday books—-religious and other themes—-which we read aloud together every night beginning with Advent.
Jesse Tree at church—-take an ornament/gift request to match each of our children and purchase a gift to donate.
Reminding kids that Santa Claus is St. Nicholas and honoring his memory and feast day.
He is a special friend of Jesus and children.
Try to make gifts for friends/family—-ornaments/baking/etc….
We try to do Anonymous gifts of help/blessings to prepare for baby Jesus—-one year we put each one on a yellow paper to fill a wooden crate (ie the manger for Jesus) and I try to do this with my CCD class.
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