Where Oh Where Did Advent Go?

I know time flies around the holiday season, but with Advent only being three weeks long, this time seemed faster than ever!  I had made a couple Advent resolutions this year and wanted to check in with how it's going.  You probably don't care about my Adventlutions at all, and I don't blame you one bit!  But for this tired old mom's memory sake, here we go:

1) Pray the St. Andrew Novena

This started on November 30 and runs through Christmas Eve.  It's a prayer you say 15 times a day and so far, so good??  I totally missed yesterday's mark, but I think I've made every other day.  I think it's been so helpful to have the prayer as a screen saver on my phone and hanging on my wall at work.  I went to Confession last week and the priest was awesome and basically told me that if I can just make time to pray more everyday, all of my other struggles will become smaller.  You can't {fill in the sin} if you're too busy praying, right?  I know it's true and this 15 times a day prayer is a good start!

St. Andrew Christmas Novena

Hail and blessed be the hour and moment in which the Son of God was born Of the most pure Virgin Mary, at midnight, in Bethlehem, in the piercing cold. In that hour vouchsafe, I beseech Thee, O my God, to hear my prayer and grant my desires through the merits of Our Savior Jesus Christ, and of His blessed Mother. Amen.

2) Simple Suppers

Each week of Advent, I wanted to have simple suppers.  Sunday would be a feast, Monday-Thursday would be Salad, Sandwich, Pasta, and Soup in any order, Friday would be meatless meal and Saturday would be leftovers.  

Well, I forgot to plan for all the feast days we've had in Advent, I mean I couldn't serve a salad on the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe!  I guess I could have made a taco salad!  But instead we had tacos.  Other than the feast days, we've stuck to the routine.  We've tried a few recipes the kids have liked, and I was so surprised when I made a big salad with chicken, bacon, and cheese on top that they all loved it and asked that we have it more often!  Winner!  This week's menu includes: Lasagna, Chicken Salad, Beef Barley Soup, Grilled Ham and Cheese, Baked Chicken with Pasta, and probably pizza on Friday.  I could cook with this weekly outline all the time, because much like a uniform, it's very helpful for planning.

3) Focus on My Husband

I've tried to do something special for Phil each day in Advent.  Sometimes it wasn't noticed by him, like taking over one of his chores, sometimes it was as simple as putting away his folded laundry, and sometimes as involved as ordering him a pizza for lunch.  There were days I just prayed for him, held back a complaint, or picked out a thoughtful Christmas gift.  I just tried to honestly put his wants before mine, which is something he does for me every single day of the year.  It's made me happy to make him happy and that's been a real gift.  And I'm no saint, there were times when I loudly declared while I was doing something for him "Happy ADVENT!" just to make sure he took notice of my loving sacrifice ;)  

I still have much to do before Christmas - I haven't wrapped one gift yet!!  Hopefully we will do a little each night this week and be finished by Friday.  It's so difficult to wrap when there are kids that stay awake longer than I can.  We used to just put all the little kids to bed and have the night to ourselves...oh the good old days, er, nights!  But, the big kids are so fun to have around, I can't complain too much, except to say that it's hard to play elf :)  I hope you all are having wonderful Advents...seven more sleeps!