Not too late for an advent wreath
This year's season of Advent - a religious countdown to Christmas - began Nov. 29, but it's not too late to make an Advent wreath. The wreath surrounds four candles; light the first on the first Sunday of Advent, and then one more is added on each subsequent Sunday until, on the last Sunday of Advent, all four candles are blazing.
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The candles can be different colors. They are often red, sometimes blue, in Protestant churches, while Catholics traditionally have three purple candles and one pink.
Instructions
Fold over a rectangular piece of fabric (I used a remnant of red velvet) and fold it lengthwise, right sides facing each other, to make a tube. (Mine was about 6-by-45 inches when folded.) Seam the long side, leaving the ends of the tube open.
Turn the sleeve right side out and stuff with rolled-up quilt batting, polyester filling, or - as I did - a combination of the two.
Once your tube is stuffed, pin the ends together, fold the raw edges under, and seam using your favorite stitch.
My seam was covered with ribbon, as I decided to wrap the wreath with several different kinds of ribbon, yarn, rickrack, even several-decades-old stretch lace seam binding from my late grandmother's sewing kit. I tied each strand at the bottom of the wreath without pinning them down, allowing me to shift the designs around until I was happy.
You could use one color and one kind of ribbon, or forego them completely in favor of other sewing notions - although, if you are sewing anything onto the wreath, you should do that before making the fabric into a tube.
Advent prayers
• The Advent wreath ceremony
The ceremony is simple. It starts at the evening meal on the Saturday before the first Sunday in Advent with the blessing of the wreath.
The head of the household says the prayers following which various members of his family light the candles.
"O God, by whose word all things are sanctified,
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