Some Special New Touches for Advent

We are doing a few new things for Advent this year. We have done the usual Advent Wreath for a few years where we light the candle(s) on the wreath and then read the daily mass readings or another appropriate reading. We have a brass ring with candle holders for the candles and in past years I had put an artificial garland around it with a purple ribbon. This year, however, due to the inspiration derived from reading blogs such as this one , showing off homemade Advent wreaths, my husband went and cut some branches from one of our pine trees outside and used these to put around the brass ring along with pine cones (also collected from my husband outside). I haven't actually attached the pine branches to the ring but it seems to work just fine like that as it is mostly likely to stay in one spot for the whole of Advent. Adding in some purple ribbon or some wire to fix things a little more securely would be simple enough though.

Something else we are doing for Advent is a continuation of a Jesse Tree that ds1 and I have been working on the past few years. We started drawing Jesse Tree Ornaments two years ago and it is our goal to finish them this year. There are different events and persons that may be used that lead up to the birth of Christ for the Jesse Tree but we chose to use this version which starts December 1 as opposed to the very beginning of Advent and includes the O Antiphons beginning December 17. In previous years we taped the ornaments on our fire place mantle but this year we are using a branch that my husband cut when he was trimming the tree in our front yard.
It feels good to be able to do these easy, little homemade things that don't require purchase from a store.