Advent: Week One.

I was extremely busy last week: organising and overseeing the school book fair.  I always think that those two days are going to be easy but they never are.  Even though I am not involved in the buying and selling I seem to spend my entire day in advising book buyers, having chats about books with parents and children, and generally hobnobbing.

Time is passing:


The leaves are almost gone from the trees and suddenly we are in to the first week of Advent.  It is also, officially, the first week of Winter which seems like a good reason to have some non seasonal roses on display in our sitting-room:

I spent part of Saturday preparing our Advent Wreath:

This year I decided to use pine cones (instead of pine branches), autumn leaves, some gilt vine leaves and other bits and bobs to make my arrangement.  I placed it all in an antique brass tray which I think have given it a very nice look.
Here it is (the night before) with the first candle lit:

Over the next week or two I will gradually decorate the apartment for Christmas.  At this stage I decided to bring out our Candle Houses.  We have four here with us. They are made in Germany and while there are many types that can be bought, a major manufacturer is the firm 'Leyk'.  Here is one of their pieces:

And here are two more:

The fourth one that we have kept here in Germany is a different make.  It is modeled on a house in the medieval town of Quedlinburg, which we have visited a few times:

And here it is when lit with a candle:

One side of each house always contains a large opening in to which the tea light candle can be inserted. Candle houses always look so cosy and inviting...

* * * * *

Today I was fortunate to have a day off from school.  I decided to go for a short walk around the town and take some photographs for you.  Not all trees have lost their autumn splendour:

Although these ones in the old town square are completely bare now:

St Suitbertus' Basilica has recently had it's Christmas Tree installed. It was lit when I went to Mass the other night but it was also raining so no photos:

Here is an 'after' and 'before' photo of the basilica interior:

It was a lot more decorated before being hit by a stray bomb during WWII.  I like the way it looked back then, but I also like the way it looks now.

And here is the Advent Wreath, suspended above the Crossing:

They have also begun to set up the Nativity scene:

This represents the Old Testament Prophets who foresaw the Birth of Jesus.  

As the weeks of Advent progress, the Nativity scene will become more and more decorated and developed, continuing right up to Christmas and then beyond that, until the Feast of Epiphany in early February.

I hope you enjoyed this post about my first week of Advent.

Advent

Today is the first Sunday of Advent and it is a tradition to prepare an Advent 'wreath' the day before.  Containing four candles, it marks the Sundays leading up to Christmas Day.  This year I am joining with quite a few people here in Germany by submitting a few photographs of it to Markus at Teacup in the Garden. I am excited because he will be posting them next Sunday.
Despite a dreadful cold at present, I have soldiered on regardless and finished it in good time.

However, I still wanted to share my wreath on my own blog.

So here it is:

This year I started off with an old copper jam making pan, a large ceramic dish and the Advent Candle Stand:

I left the outside of the copper pan uncleaned as I wanted to retain the tarnished 'look'.  That way it didn't scream out 'look at me everyone, I'm a newly polished pot!' It is taking a much more muted, secondary role in this particular production!

I then packed in some florist foam and tried out the wreath frame and the candles:

Unfortunately, I could not get any purple or pink candles this year in our village which was a shame as these are the traditional colours for Advent.  I purchased three red candles and one ivory one instead:

The reason for the three-and-one-colours?  The three same-coloured candles are known as 'the Prophet', 'the Bethlehem', and 'the Angel' candle, in that order. The single-coloured candle is the Shepherd Candle which is lit third in succession. 

So first the Prophet, then the Bethlehem, then the Shepherd, and finally, on the Sunday before Christmas Day, the Angel candle.

Usually I use branches of fir for my wreath.  They always look very 'proper'.  This time I wanted the finished product to look a little 'wild' and untamed, when placed within the context of our sittingroom; and so I chose cedar and left the branches untrimmed.

Then some reddish/purplish Christmas decoration which are somewhat similar to the pinecones one finds on a Korean Fir.

I also scattered some gold stars to represent the Star of Bethlehem.

Most of the greenery is cypress but I wound some larch branches around the base of the candles because it provides a contrasting shade of green:

And when I had finished the wreath, it looked like this:

I hope you like it!

P.S.
I have been experimenting with watermarking my photographs.  I am not sure that I like it.  It looks much better when others do it. . . Maybe next time I shall just put my blog name on it.

P.P.S.
The first candle has been lit: