Advent

It's starting to feel a little like a Victorian Christmas with sharp white frost coating every outside surface each morning.

Today it was particularly cold and so we slipped and slid along to the moor to see what was happening there. In the last few weeks we have had so much rain (more obsession about the levels of the Ouse, now available online), that the moor has looked like this:

So now, after the cold, there is quite a lot of ice. We had fun breaking it up and throwing it, all the time trying not to let Nathaniel go skating, either by accident or on purpose!

He got quite ambitious regarding the amount of ice he thought he could throw:

In the afternoon we went to the advent spiral at school. This is one of those wonderful traditions that doesn't really work with a bunch of pre-schoolers, but having participated for a few years, when they are a bit older, they really appreciate.

Everyone assembles in the gym (freezing cold!), and sings carols while, one by one, each child walks through a spiral made on the floor from boughs of fir trees. When they get to the centre, they light their candle from the central candle and then place it along the sprial. So after a few have done it, there is a spiral of flickering candles as well and greenery. Its very beautiful, but entails getting toddlers to sit still and quietish while 200 kids walk around the room!

Our two were pretty good, probably because they got to walk the spiral about half way through, breaking up the time rather well, and becuase we were sitting close to the "band", so they both spent most of the last 20 minutes watching the instruments carefully. Nathaniel was particularly enamoured by the flutes.

I guess someone has to be.