Stir Up Sunday and the Christ Candle

I was greatly inspired by this thread at 4Real and so finally felt confident to work further on the Christ Candle. Using a sharp knife and a watermelon baller (yes, you read right!) I carved out a 'christmas cave' at the base of the candle for the Christ Child. The little Christ Child is a 'glow in the dark' figurine.

The top of the candle has a white ribbon with silver stars on it. I also used one of the spare stars that I have used on the Mary mantle, as the Christmas Star at Bethlehem at the top of the candle. I had a paper, silver doily with lovely patterns around the outside to line the 'christmas cave' for the Christ Child to lie in.

Here are the bits and pieces I used to create the Christ Candle's decorations.

I nice close up shot of the Christ Candle, I did initially have the star lower down, but when I went to sit it in the Christ Child stand in the middle of the Advent wreath, the gold bar came across at that point, so I moved it up onto the ribbon itself.

Here is the Mary mantle, that goes over the Christ candle on the feast of the Immaculate Conception 8th of December. The mantle represents the spotless and immaculate womb in which the the Christ Child was nestled, spotless and immaculate from the time Mary was conceived in the womb of St Anne.

I had bought some beautiful, blue, sheer, christmas material with white hollys on it. Then I used the white ribbon with the silver stars, as a rim around the bottom and on one side, I made the letter 'M' with it. Then I put 12 stars (significant symbol of Our Lady's queenship) on the M and rim.

Here is what it looks like over the Christ Candle, it is sheer enough just to faintly see the Candle through it.

A complete shot of our wreath completely finished and ready to be lit tonight, being the first Sunday of Advent.

We are also busy making our Jesse tree symbols and hope to show pictures of our handiwork in the days to come....

The first Sunday of Advent is also Stir-Up Sunday where puddings, christmas cakes and the like are traditionally made and we have certainly been busy!

This year we had a wish only to gift give to others, by giving our christmas cooking, namely our favourite christmas cake - Dark Chocolate and Port Christmas Cake - YUMMY!

I remember an aunty saying to me a couple of Christmases ago, that the best gift given was a little, homemade christmas cake, stating it gave them great enjoyment over the christmas season and so I have decided to gift give in this way permanently in the future.

This of course, required me to slowly squirrel away the ingredients for them, so I've been keeping them in a big, plastic box and keeping it under our bed.

I went to Dollars and Cents and made a lovely discovery! Christmas Tins of three different sizes to keep the christmas cakes in. It enables me to store them securely over the next few weeks, as I re-open each cake, each week and pour a little more port over them.

Of course it is nice to give the cakes in these beautiful tins, so that my loved ones can also store the cake safely as they slowly (or maybe not so slow..) make their way through it!

At CakeDeco down in Melbourne I ordered the cake tins to fit the gift-giving tins. I bought four tins in fact, so that I could make our own cake with the 23cm sized tin (the biggest one.)

Here is my first batch, I was able to use the mixture meant for a 23cm sized cake to make these three.

Here the Dark Chocolate and Port Christmas Cake recipe, it has become 'MY' recipe, that I make with great love and enjoyment. I had suggested that anyone interested in the recipe, leave me their email address but Mary was so good to track down an online version, from the Better Homes and Gardens website - thank you Mary! (I love your beautiful Jesse Tree, BTW!)

The recipe comes from the Australian 'Better Homes and Gardens'. I look forward to each year in November when they release their christmas cooking edition, they always have wonderful recipes with the most beautiful, inspiring photos. I never throw the copies out and so my collection is growing...