Each year the first Sunday of Advent just creeps upon us and I’m frantically trying to make or buy (without breaking the bank) some arrangement of Advent candles to light on our festive table, our Christmas table decorations.
The Advent Sunday dinners are special, though sometimes they are Sunday lunch, or Saturday dinner or, even a Monday dinner. It’s a pretty hectic time of year, as you’ll probably agree. I find it is important to pause and enjoy a full, home-cooked meal once a week at this time of year. That’s when we take a breather, light a candle and reflect.
Had I been organised and started prep in October, we could’ve made a spectacular table piece…but I’m not organised enough and I’m not beating myself up for it either!
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We made 2 simple and beautiful Advent candle decorations
…for our dining table and our coffee table… Actually I lie: the CHILDREN made them all on their own. I just sat and watched and chatted with them.
It was part of their advent calendar task (read about our DIY Advent Calendar)
“2nd Dec: Go for a walk to collect pine cones, branches and berries. Make 2 Advent table decorations”
It was a Saturday I was solo parenting, with Dadonthebrink visiting his parents in the Netherlands.
I showed Angelina and Hugo some inspiration for Christmas table decorations from my Pinterest Christmas boards.
And off we went, into the nearby woods, with the dog in tow.
We were armed with some garden clippers (really sharp ones, like these garden secateurs), a tote bag or two and a big blue IKEA bag.
In the woods a lovely bounty awaited us… Pine trees and pine cones, red berries and blue- coloured berries, mosses and all sorts of branches.
The kids did really well in finding bits and pieces.
We even managed to get quite grubby when we played with frozen puddles.
Coming home, Max lost interest. That was the limit of my 5 year old’s attention span. Hugo got on with washing the pinecones and Angelina sorted the rest of nature’s treasures.
We had Christmas music playing.
The kids each took one of the bases:
1. A metal tray I’d found at the Red Cross shop, for which I had 4 pillar candles (that just stand on their own)
2. A red candleholder, which was perfect for our regular white candles.
(if you don’t have one… pop over to your local charity store to browse for something or buy online)
The kids had free reign in how they used the materials and how they arranged everything to make these Advent and Christmas table decorations.
Once finished, we decided that the dinner table decoration’s white candles were a bit too plain, so we played around with dripping molten coloured wax from old candles down them and then adding some glitter to them. Not the prettiest result, but lots of fun.
I’m usually such a control freak about these sort of decorations, but this time it was just so nice to sit back and watch them create! Working together, helping each other. Angelina’s arty side came out and Hugo, the ever practical and great with tools, was quick to claim the secateurs.
Watch our mini decoration collecting and making adventure:
There was a bit of magic in the day, especially when a dear dashed just a few feet from us in the woods.
Angelina was convinced it was one of Santa’s reindeer hurrying to get ready for all the action to come. 🙂
What do you think of our Advent and Christmas table decorations made by the kids?
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