Simple, Seasonal Goodness: Celebrating Advent with a Difference

I first published this post last year, but too close to Christmas to fill the linky list. We will probably do a similarly simple advent calendar this year, and some hand made gifts of [stop reading family members!] lip balm and body butter.
What will you do? If you need some ideas, take a look at the posts in the linky list. There are some lovely ideas and tutorials there. Leave a message or link up your end of year posts below. 
Over the past month I’ve read of lots of lovely ways to mark the passing of the days, the seasons and the year, with craft activities, meals, Advent calendars and Solstice parties.
So below, I’ve created a Linky List for you to add your post on something you are doing this year, be it an Advent calendar you’ve made, a wreath or garland, home made presents or locally sourced feasts.
Or, add a post about the way you are approaching the holiday season this year, without or without presents, family, friends, introspection or renewal.
But first, here’s my family’s advent calendar for 2012:

I borrowed the basic idea from Tricia, stringing up gum leaves and bits of bark to count down the days. But instead of a craft activity for each day (too hard with three widely spaced kids and school still going), each item is marked P, A, M or H, for Plant, Animal, Mineral or Human.
Over the month, we will be building a nativity scene on our sometime-nature table, using parts of the one I made in Mikaela’s playgroup a few years back. On the animal and human days I will supply something (a wise man, shepherd, sheep, donkey, echidna or bee – slightly random I know!), and on the mineral and plant days, the kids will find something in the garden to decorate the table.
At the same time, each day Mary and Joseph will take a step closer to the stable where they will arrive on Christmas Eve.
And on the 21st, instead of a letter, the leaf is marked SUN, because the 21st is the Summer Solstice.
My plan is to hang a big sun on that day, but that isn’t entirely in keeping with the traditional nativity scene, so I may come up with something more creative and separate to the advent-nature table, we’ll see. Either way we will do something to mark the longest day of the year and celebrate the summer sun.
As for presents on the day, in my family we limit it mainly to children, but I have always wanted my children to be involved in giving as well as receiving, so we usually make some gifts together.
In the past we’ve made jam, the kids have done drawings and made cards, and posted pics of themselves to absent grandparents and godparents. One year Liam sewed a picture frame out of felt for one of the grandparents too. This year they’re already done cards (though I haven’t posted them), and we are planning to have some preserved lemons to giveaway, but we’ll see how we go! 🙂
For the kids, I haven’t decided exactly to what to give yet, but I am planning to put together a cardboard solar oven kit for them to make, if I can get to it 🙂

What are you doing, or what have you made, or how are you approaching this holiday season?

There are so many ways celebrate this season, whether you are celebrating Christmas, Hanukkah, the Summer Solstice or the Winter.
Add your link to the list, and as always, a link back to this page from the post would be appreciated. Just link to Simple Seasonal Goodness at https://sustainablesuburbia.net/simple-seasonal-goodness-celebrating-advent-with-a-difference somewhere on your page.
This post was shared at IBOT with Essentially Jess and Inspire Me Monday.