Westwinds Online Advent Calendar – Day 5

It’s 18 days until Christmas!

Every day of Advent we will present you with treats and tries. Treats are totally free giveaways sponsored by Westwinds and our friends in the community. Tries are challenges designed to help you experience a more meaningful Christmas season.

Today’s giveaway is a pack of five gift tags designed by Brooke Pieske. Gift giving is a really fun part of Christmas, and we want to make it even better with these super cool tags. The tradition goes all the way back to the Magi who brought gifts for Jesus, and it continues to be a concrete way to bless the people you love at Christmas time.

Download the tags here: http://bit.ly/AdventDay5Giveaway

If you want to print the tags, download the image that has all of the tags together.

Today, focus on the gratitude you feel for the gifts you’ve already received, and pray for blessing on the people who you’ll give gifts to. Use a candle to focus your prayers. When you feel your attention wandering, blow out the candle, relight it, and start again. It’s funny, and fun, to see how flawed our attentions truly are. The skill of wrangling our thoughts towards good things has lasting effects on our happiness in life. In the beginning, try this for five to seven minutes. If you find the experience useful, you might try to outlast a tea light. But, be warned, the more expensive tea lights can last for up to six hours!