Advent Singen

Elizabeth asked for me to post something about our dinner parties. I thought I'd focus on our advent singen parties which we host 4 of every December.
Celebrating the advent is a Catholic tradition. James' mom (Tutu) learned about it in her German classes at school and wanted to incorporate it into her family. Our family has carried on the tradition because it is such an awesome one.
For the four Sundays before Christmas we light a candle, sing Christmas Carols, and eat a nice little dinner.

Over the years, we've honed our dinner into a fine-tuned production. Every family member has a cooking job and a cleaning job. We can throw this together in 2 hours or less. We usually make the cookies and brownies and the sundried tomato pesto and asparagus rolls earlier in the week.
On the menu:
Me: Homemade rolls for sandwiches
Cranberry Relish
Sundried Tomato Pesto over Brie with crackers
Gingerbread boys
Sugar cookies
James: Deli Meat platter (ham, turkey, London Broil Roast Beef)
Deli Cheese Platter (Swiss, American, Provolone)
Vegetable Tree: (See that Styrofoam cone? We covered it in green plastic wrap, put vegetables all over it held in by toothpicks. The star is cut from a yellow pepper.) We use peppers, tomatoes, sugar snap peas, broccoli, cucumbers. It's pretty!
Jansen: Table setting, mayonnaise, mustard, deli mustard, help with drinks.
Janessa: Asparagus rolls with pomegranate seeds. Decorate all of the cookies.
Logan: Christmas Jello Jigglers
BYU Mint Brownies
Chocolate covered pretzels
J.B.: Kids' snack mix (goldfish, pretzels, Christmas m&ms)
Soren: Christmas m&m's, drinks, and ice

Then we invite a few families over after dinner, eat, light candles, sing lots of carols and that's our party! James has made up about 30 books with lyrics to all of the Christmas songs in them. You know how rough it can be to sing "Frosty the Snowman" and realize that you don't really know any words beyond that line and "thumpity thump thump."

This is the advent wreath that I made. Four Sundays before Christmas we light the first candle. Three Sundays before Christmas we light two candles. Two Sundays before Christmas we light three candles, and so on. That is why the candles are burned in a stair-step pattern.
We always save Silent Night for last. We also sing Silent Night in a few different languages. Our standard selection includes: German, Spanish, French, Hawaiian, and 3 verses in English. We also will sing it in any language that people attending our advent singen know. This year we had it done in Italian, Portuguese, Japanese.
This is one of our favorite Christmas Traditions. We missed not being able to do it last year when our house was under construction and we weren't able to host people. It's a simple party structure, yet really enjoyable.