First Sunday of Advent: Stir it Up Sunday

Today is the First Day of Advent! It's finally here! The season I have been preparing for over the past month and I could not be more excited about how the day progressed. Do you have family traditions that begin with Advent? We do! We normally welcome back our Elf on the Shelf (yep, we do it! and we use it to highlight the liturgical year too)! Our Elf is named Buddy.. I know it's real original but the kids' love him and his name.

We always set him up near our Advent Wreath on the day of his return so that the boys remember that it will be our first day lighting a candle in honor of Advent. We also have a Welcome Advent/ Welcome Back Buddy Breakfast! Buddy the Elf is so sweet that he even sets the plates, cups and forks on the table so its less work in the morning. We enjoyed caramel pumpkin pancakes because we love pumpkin everything in this house and it was a breakfast that could be "stirred up" on this Stir it Up Sunday. The first Sunday of Advent is called Stir it Up Sunday because of an old Advent prayer that begins with "Stir up, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people".

If you are interested in the adventures of Buddy and how we utilize him in our Liturgical celebrations follow me on Instagram or checkout #BuddyKongElfAdventures.

After breakfast, we enjoyed a little family time before heading off to the boys' first Christmas Children's Choir practice. Goalie has been beyond excited since he learned he was FINALLY old enough to join the choir this year and has been asking constantly when he could go to practice. Little Man on the other hand, wasn't planning on participating. He actually asked if he could just read while his brother rehearsed. I try my best not to force push my children into activities but I was disappointed Little Man didn't want to participated. It's funny how God intervenes because the music teacher running rehearsals was offering lollipops to the children participating in the choir and that's all it took for Little Man to change his mind and want to join. Go figure!

I have to be honest and say that I was not 100% ready for Advent to begin today and ran to three different stores searching for Advent Candles so we could Bless our Wreath and light our first purple candle during dinner. I was frantic until I came across some ribbon and decided to tie it to our white taper candles as a substitute until I can obtain some colored candles. I guess it looks a little fancier this way too... maybe I'll add the ribbon to the colored candles too? 

I am a SUPER corny person and I love when you can play on words so even though I stirred up some pancakes for breakfast, I thought it would be fun to enjoy some turkey "stir"-fry for dinner (we still have TONS of leftovers from Thanksgiving) and I had plans to stir up some Christmas pudding too! Making Christmas pudding is actually a real tradition that often happens on Stir it Up Sunday but we ran out of time so we will be making our pudding tomorrow afternoon. Looking for an easy recipe? Check out my Menu Plan Monday post from this past week. It includes a recipe for a no steam Christmas pudding packed with protein and a little healthier than most Christmas Puddings. Do you have any Christmas Pudding recipes? If so, please share them!

Dinner was devoured and we ended our evening completing Day 1 of the Holy Heroes Advent Adventure as a family! It has been a tradition of ours for the past four years and the boys love it! Free coloring pages, cute videos and prayers all sent directly to your email each day.. you can't beat that! While I was running around town searching for Advent candles, I purchased some purple folders to hold the boys' Advent Adventure printouts and brand new notebooks for them to utilize in this new liturgical year as a prayer journal and to keep work that we do on the saints throughout the year.

Now that everyone is in bed, I am beyond thrilled to get started on my devotions too! I am using Advent with Saint Teresa of Calcutta, The Little Blue Book and my prayer journal. I will be writing out some New Liturgical Year Resolutions and evaluating why I haven't met some of these resolutions in the past.

What devotions are you trying out this year? I am ashamed to admit that I cannot remember an Advent season that I actually completed a full devotion and it is one of my goals to complete these properly this Advent season. Prayers would be greatly appreciated as I tackle this goal!

I know that it seems that this day was just packed full of family fun but I also am participating in an Advent Photo Challenge hosted by the Zelie Group! It started today but it's never too late to join in the fun. Check out the amazing pictures that were shared with us today by searching through the hashtags listed. How was your start to Advent? If it's not how you planned you still have plenty of time to get things prepared the way you want them! I hope this Advent season is prayerful and meaningful for you and your families.

This is being shared at CatholicMom.com for their Advent Wreath Linkup!

God Bless!