December...Advent Begins!!

Happy First of December!  Anybody who knows me would know how much I love Christmas.  I think about it all year, stitch things pertaining to it all year, and ponder the miracle of the virgin birth and the fact that Jesus came as a humble servant to lead us to an eternal and abundant life by sacrificing himself on a cross for our sins.  Sometimes I think Thanksgiving should follow Christmas, since He has offered us the ultimate gift.  

Advent starts today and the first candle we light is the candle of hope.   We have hope as we remember His coming and await His return.  I have stitched two advent sets so far.  The first will always be my favorite.  It was a free pattern at one time by Ellen Mayer-Stroh.  The patterns have since been taken down.  I love the little scenes she created and have often thought I should stitch just the scenes without the numbers as ornaments.  The second set is for my DIL who saw the Brookes Books freebies and loved how cute they were.  I thought, since I planned to post as often as I can the gifts included from the Advent box from The Kitten Stitcher, I would post pictures of the Advent pieces as well.  So...here goes!  Here is number one from EMS and BBD.  

And the gift today was from Blackbird Designs called Noel.  

Isn't it lovely!  If I wasn't in the middle of the Christmas House I would drop everything and stitch this!  I really do love their designs.  So as we go through the Advent season, I'm going to focus on the true meaning and let my heart be prepared for the greatest gift of all.   Blessings....and Happy Stitching!