Away in a manger

This year I'm starting something new with the kids. I'm doing my version of Advent and I think it will help to put a little more of Christ back into our Christmas. We didn't get off to a great start tonight because I just downloaded a bunch of stuff to read about different ways to celebrate it last night and haven't found much time to read it yet, but so far I'm planning on having a growing knitted nativity scene (more to follow), a Jesse Tree with ornaments and verses talking about the ancestry of Jesus, candles (in an Advent wreath or not, not sure about that one yet), and the kids will have mangers that they will fill up with yarn or hay or something like that for each little kind deed that they do leading up to Christmas and a little doll in their mangers on Christmas morning. I'm very excited about it. Tonight I made the manger for the nativity set. Baby Jesus will be the last one knitted (unless I choose to have the wise men come some time later). I found a patter for a knitted nativity set (I'd LOVE to get my hands on this one or this one), but it didn't have a manger so I made one up. Basically what I did was:

Cast on 14, Starting with a knit row, st-st 7 rows
Row 8: Knit (makes a purl bump which will help when making up the manger)
Row 9: Cast on (knitted cast on) 6 stitches, knit across
Row 10: Purl
Row 11: Cast on 6 stitches, knit across
Row 12: St-st 6 rows
Row 18: Bind off 6 st, purl to the end
Row 19: Bind off 6 st. knit to end
Row 20: K
Row 21-27: starting with a knit row, st-st 7 rows
Row 28: K
Row 29-40: K
Bind off. Make a cardboard box (with no top) for support (something along this line):

Set down in manger, stuff lightly, sew up manger. Add crossbeam embellishments with yarn needle and extra yarn. Geo crocheted a few pieces of hay for me :)