At December 1st, starts something that we in Norway call "Advent" (this is the days from December 1st, and until December 24th).  I decorate our kitchen window with Christmas curtains and put nice Christmas lights in several windows.

Our kitchen window (1st Sunday of "Advent" 2003)

I also have a very tiny tree outside our house. This tree I have decorated with tiny, tiny Christmas lights.

One of the windows in our livingroom. (Seen from outside.)

At "Advent", we are doing things that makes the time until Christmas nice and cozy. In Norway, it's dark in the morning, when we goes to work (and our kids goes to school), and it has turned dark again when we are finished at work. (My kids is finished at school, 2-3 hours before I am finished at work, so they have some daylight.) That's why we, during "Advent-time" is lighting lots of candle-lights, and are decorating our windows with the stars, and other lights.

We are also preparing ourselves til Christmas, by baking lots of Christmas cookies.

The 1st Sunday at "Advent-time" we are lighting the first "Advent light". The 2nd Sunday, we are lighting the first and second "Advent light". The 3rd Sunday, we lights 3 lights and the 4th Sunday at "Advent-time" we are lighting all four of the "Advent lights". Usually we use purple lights at "Advent-time" (and purple napkins.) The color of the "Advent-time" is purple.

At December 13th, we celebrate "Lucia". Read about Lucia here.