Third week of Advent

Last night was an exciting night Advent-wise as we were able to light the pink candle... Advent traditionallly has 3 purple candles and one pink one, with a fifth white candle that is lit on Christmas eve in anticipation of Jesus. I'm not sure why but the order is:

first week: purple
second week: purple
third week: rose
fourth week: purple
Christmas eve: white

Now I am told you can change that up but I was aiming for traditional. The pink candle holds a bit of mystique to it, being the only pink one, and Banana was pleased that we were going to light it. We started by reading Isaiah 40:5. We then started working on our "helping hands" tree. We each cut out tracings of our hands (well not DH, he helped trace Gorilla's hands because he can't flatten his own hand to be traced) from shiny recycled Christmas bags. On each hand we are writing one thing we can do to help someone else. Each time we finish one of these things then we get to stick the hand up on the tree.

While we ate dinner, DH told the kids about when he used to work in Peru and the children there and how difficult their lives were. We talked to the kids about how blessed we are and how we must remember to be grateful for this and to bless others every day. I also talked to the kids about an issue that has always been in my heart - caring for Orphans. We talked about how it is our Christian duty to care for the orphans of the world and ways that we can do that. We also talked about the way that our Father sent Jesus to us... not as a regal king but as a common person. His family didn't have money, they didn't have things, they were like anyone else in that sense. We talked about how God spread the news of our king to people like the shepherd's because Jesus is for everyone. Banana then asked "Is that why we are having Shepherd's pie for dinner? Because of the shepherd's? Is this what they used to eat?" I had to laugh! I hadn't even realized that irony!! The real reason we were eating Shepherd's pie was that Gorilla had a b-day part to attend that ended at 5:30 and then I had to throw dinner together quickly and opted for something from the freezer. I am hoping to do a "biblical dinner" for the fourth candle, which we are going to light on Saturday night and then do the white candle on Christmas Eve.