First Sunday in Advent

Even before the first Sunday in Advent, we began celebrating this special time with an Advent service right here at SVF on Friday, November 30.
 As always, the Music Line singing was top notch.
 
Two days later marked the first Sunday in Advent. The first candle is lit.

  Image result for Swedish advent four candle holder with snuffer
 
"On the first Sunday of Advent – four weeks before Christmas – people light the first candle in the Advent candlestick. This is always a special event, eagerly awaited. Each Sunday until Christmas, a candle is lit (and blown out after a while), until all four candles are alight."
- from the official Sweden/Sverige website

 
At home I have a special candle holder (with a line-up of four candles) used every Advent season.
Here in Sweden we are using one candle with daily "burns" until December 24.


Going to Immanuelkyrkan for the Sunday morning service is a highlight of the day.

Fil:Immanuelskyrkan Jönköping kyrksalen.JPG
 The hymns sung are mostly ones we remember singing, too.


As we were walking home from the church service, we intersected with most of our American College Line students. We issued a spur-of-the-moment invitation to the group to come to our apartment for pancakes. (Okay...Swedish pancakes if you must label them.)


Wes is the guy who makes the pancakes. Gluten free, milk free, sugar free...because it's the holiday season, here is his "secret" recipe:

3 eggs
1 c. almond milk (or any milk)
1 T. olive oil
4 T. Perfect flour (gluten free-available at Costco!)
pinch of salt 

Mix all ingredients together and pour batter into pan and proceed as you would with any other pancake recipe.






Were we finished with our Advent Week One celebrating?
Nej!
Once more we walked down the hill to Sofiakyrkan for an Advent concert.
It was a packed church and we were lucky to find seats.
The concert was so good. 
On the way out I wanted to snap a couple of pictures of the candles down the aisles of the church making for a magical scene one would expect in Sweden .





 

Is this not lovely?
We are so fortunate to be in Sweden during this Advent season!

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