There are two types of people who have their birthday in December:

• People like my father who hated that Christmas was overshadowing his birthday on 5th December
• People like my Mum's stepfather who loved that all the Christmas goodies were in the shops, just in time for his birthday on 6th December.

Uncle Reg, Mum's stepfather, loved pecan nuts.  In a world where things were still seasonal, they would appear in the shops around the 1st of December.  My Grandmother (Mum's mum) would always make sure she came home a little early on the first friday of the month so she could stop off at the greengrocers and buy him a big brown paper bag full.

Christmas preparations would start in earnest on the last Sunday of November, for those who would make their own sugary delights.  Stir up Sunday is traditionally the day that families would make their Christmas Puddings and often their Christmas cake.

The reason for doing it so early was preservation and economy of time.  In the run up to Christmas, pre microwaves, finding time to steam a pudding for 8 hours, in order to cook it, would be difficult.  But if everyone was doing it on the same day, you wouldn't be expected to have visitors.

Fruit cakes are edible on the day that they are baked but it is one of those wonderful and magical chemical reaction things that a fruit cake is better if it's left to mature.  To help with that, we would feed it with a begrudingly given amount of whisky from my father's drinks cabinet.

I still make a Dundee Cake each year, using Mary Berry's receipe, only mine are cooked in mini cake tins that give two bites so you can snaffle one and not feel guilty.

In our house it's served straight and not with cheese which my Australian husband was shocked to discover his relatives in Yorkshire do.  He was also shocked by how much whisky was in the cake they served him and had to not drive for 6 hours after the cake!

Even if you want to ban Christmas until after your December birthday then you are going to have problem with Advent Calendars.  Due to their nature, they have to start on 1st December.

This year, I had bought Hubby a chocolate one, as usual, but when doing my shopping order on Thursday, I saw the Woodmansterne Caltime Nativity Scene.  It was reduced because, well it was the 30th November.  So I treated myself.

Each day I get to take a few minutes out of my life and build a bit of the scene and I'm using it as a way to think and reflect in the lead up to Christmas this year.

Just beind me, whilst I sit at my desk, is my candle advent calendar. 

This is a treat to have a small candle burn during my days when I'm in my home office, or light when I'm in bed, reading.

Again, it's an opportunity to take a few minutes out of my day to stop and reflect.

Someone once said to me that I was a hypocrite because I went to church or synagogue but I wasn't perfect.  I didn't respond because there was no point. 

They weren't going to understand that I follow my faith because I am NOT perfect. 

But I always strive to be a little better each day.

For those of us, in the UK, growing up in the 60s, 70s and 80s, the Blue Peter Advent Crown was an annual make that we wanted to do.

Obsessed with acquiring coat hangers and tinsel, we had no idea where we would be hanging it, if we got to make it.

I'm not even sure when fire-retardant tinsel came into being, so it had the added excitement of whether or not you would burn your house down before Christmas.

We all have memories of school carol services.  Kids with dripping noses singing with only a rough connection to the tune and variations of words such as most highly flavoured gravy instead of Most Highly Favoured Lady.

Probably the most famous Carol Service comes from Kings College, Cambridge.

Correctly called A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, this service was introduced in 1918 and first broadcast in 1928.

Back in 1990, Delia Smith published her Christmas book which was accompanied by a TV series.

Apart from bring us her famous more booze that fruit Creole Christmas cake, she vocalised what many of us thought when she said that for her, Christmas started, in her kitchen, on Christmas Eve, preparing things whilst listening to the service from Kings College.

There are probably two periods in the Christian calendar when we are very focused on how fragile our lives are and how much we don't deserve God's love and kindness.

Easter, with it's period of contemplation between Ash Wednesday, Good Friday then culminating in Easter Sunday has always been a time when I've attended a sewing retreat and focused on my unworthiness.

Christmas is a more hopeful time.  It's full of promise.  Advent is about what is to come and with that, all the expectations.

Churches and homes would have an Advent Wreath or Crown with a candle being lit on each Sunday.  Although the practice is traditionally a Lutheran practice, it has spread from it's origins in Germany to many other Christian denominations and countries.

Normally there are four candles, for the four Advent Sundays, often coloured and a fifth, white candle to be lit on Christmas Day.

Whilst the practice can be dated to the 16th Century, it wasn't until the mid 19th Century that the practice became more wide spread due to the the work of Johann Hinrich Wiehern.  During Advent, the children at the mission school, that he founded, would ask daily if it was Christmas yet.  

And who cannot forget Advent Calendars which I explored last year in my lace notes.

These days they have evolved into chocolate filled wonders or individual bags of lovely things.

We might order an Advent package of mini skeins to open each day or start a Make Along where we receive a few rows of a pattern to make each day.  Ravelry and pattern designers' blogs are full of offers to sign up during October and November with the first parts released on 1st December.

For the makers amongst us, Advent calendars offer an opportunity to create small gifts or the containers for such things.

I've explored some of the advent traditions in my next blog