Happy Friday, friends! I’m glad you could join me! Here are this week’s favorites.

Since I have seven faves, I’m also linking up with Kelly for 7 Quick Takes.

(Note: Revolution of Love is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.)

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This Week’s Fave Activity

Decorating the House & Prepping for Advent

Yesterday, I spent the day decorating the house and setting up our Advent activities. (This extra week between Thanksgiving and Advent really gave me a boost, since I’m usually really behind!)

I shared the process on Instastories and many of you asked for the links to various items I used. You can find them all here – https://revolutionoflove.com/favorite-advent-traditions-2017/. What are your favorite Advent activities?

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This Week’s Fave Advent Activity with the Kids

Letter to Baby Jesus

This remains not only a fun activity for my boys, but one of the most popular posts on my blog. Instead of having the boys write the traditional letters to Santa, I put together a simple form letter that I could print off and give everyone in the family to fill out.  We decide on a spiritual we’ll work on during Advent as a gift to Jesus, who we will especially pray for and what presents we hope to get to celebrate Jesus’ birthday. When they were done, they folded up their letters and put them in their shoes for St. Nicholas to deliver to Baby Jesus.

If you’d like to print of a copy of the Letter to Baby Jesus for your little ones, I posted the PDF here. Also, I made a second version for those who don’t want the Santa aspect. It can be found here. 🙂 For the full post, click here – A Favorite Advent Tradition: A Christmas Letter to Baby Jesus (Instead of Santa)

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This Week’s Fave App

The Christmas List App

Now that my Advent items are ready and my house is almost decorated, I am ready to tackle the Christmas shopping. For the last few years I’ve been using The Christmas List App.

I keep track of my gifts and categorize them by groups – family, friends, school, etc. I have shopping lists organized by store. I set a budget and keep track of my progress. I am usually always about the paper and pencil, but in this case, I love this app!

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This Week’s Fave Movies with my Kids

The Grinch and Ralph Breaks the Internet

The popcorn has been flowing with two movies in two weeks. I was dragging my feet with The Grinch, but it was cute and funny. The Grinch was more grouchy than down-right mean, but it still worked. We all enjoyed it. Besides, it has Benedict Cumberbatch and Christmas. What more could you want? 😉

I was not a huge fan of the first Ralph movie. There was nothing wrong, it just didn’t grab me as something I’d watch twice. However, I did enjoy the sequel Ralph Breaks the Internet a lot more. Maybe it was all the funny social media references or it could have been the show stealing Disney princesses, but I actually had fun and enjoyed it as much as my kids. Thumbs up on both movies.

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This Week’s Fave Online Shopping Destination

Etsy.com

I am a huge fan of Amazon, but this year I bought a number of unique gifts from Etsy shops. If you are looking for some new shops to browse, check out Blessed Is She’s Catholic Holiday Gift Guide. Many of my favorite shops are listed in there! Here are some of the gifts I bought this year:

Marian Journal Set and Stickers by Be A Heart

Mother of Our Savior by Brass & Mint Co

 Punch the Devil in the Face Mug by Just Love Prints

Verso L’alto Embroidered Baseball Cap by Just Love Prints

FOREVER ONE BLESSINGS for Mr. & Mrs. by My Saint My Hero

Adore Him Red Beaded Bracelet  by Pink Salt Riot

God Walks Among the Pots and Pans by Rose Harrington

Sacred Heart & Immaculate Heart Pouch by Someday Saints Designs

Sacred Heart Pin and Print Bundle by Wild Hope Co

There are so many other great gifts to choose from! Check it out.

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This Week’s Fave Christmas Album by a Male Artist

The Advent of Christmas by Matt Maher

We love listening to Matt Maher and were excite to see that he came out with a new Christmas album. It is already a family fave. My favorite song on the album? The catchy rendition of Hark the Herald Angel Sing.

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This Week’s Fave Christmas Album by a Female Artist

Behold by Lauren Daigle

There are two new amazing Christmas albums this year! I love Lauren Daigle’s voice and her new Christmas album is a welcome addition to our collection. My fave song on the album? The toe tapping Jingle Bells.

Okay, all this talk about Christmas albums makes me wonder, what are your favorite Christmas albums? Mine include the above two and…

• The Best of Bing Crosby – The Christmas Collection: 20th Century Masters 
• The Christmas Song by Nat King Cole
• Christmas by Michael Buble
• Christmas Offerings by Third Day
• Let It Snow Baby, Let It Reindeer by Relient
• Dawn of Grace by Sixpence None the Richer

Those are my favorites of the week! What have you been enjoying?

Have a great weekend!

PS – You can follow RoL on Bloglovin, Feedly or another news feed. If you are a social media fan like me, we can stay in touch through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, GoodReads, Letterboxd, or Spotify. 😉

Are you ready to link up?? Here are the rules.

1. Create a post with your Friday Favorites.

2. Add a link back here so others can play along.

3. If you want to add the logo to your post, here is the html.

<p style=”text-align: center;”><img class=”aligncenter wp-image-10649″ src=”http://revolutionoflove.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/fri_fave_logo_640.jpg” alt=”” width=”500″ height=”500″ /></p>

4. Make sure you’re sending us to your actual post, and not to your general blog address. The link-up will be open for two weeks. Have fun!