We love doing Advent at our house. It means time spent as a family, time with the Lord, learning about Him and his love for us. It means warm cozy nights with a candle or two or three or four lit while singing Christmas songs.
Advent means, “coming” or “arrival”. During the advent season we like to celebrate the fact that Jesus came to earth so many years ago as a little baby. People do this in many different ways but I’ll tell you how we celebrate.
First of all, we decided this year that we really want Christmas to be meaningful. Not just about presents.
This is a little tricky to do with 3 young children who are desperately anticipating Christmas morning and all that entails, even though we have always done advent with the kids through the Christmas season, they still very much look forward to opening presents.
Who can blame them? I like opening presents too. And it’s not like we aren’t going to get any presents. We just are not getting many, they each will get one gift from us (we also don’t do the Santa thing, our kids know we buy the gifts). Plus they’ll each get one from a cousin and likely from grandparents.
In light of the fact that we are moving this summer, possibly to a smaller house and we are still feeling rather poor after this summer’s adventures (click here to read about THAT) and we just don’t want our kids to think Christmas is all about the toys, we want something more meaningful. Something more Christ centered.
With the kids being a little older every year, I always anticipate how much more they are going to get out of advent. They have always enjoyed lighting the candles and singing some Christmas songs, but I always wonder how much of the story they are actually absorbing.
So this year I am trying a new activity to draw them in.
Coloring.
My kids LOVE to color.
The advent book we use is “The Advent Jesse Tree”, it seems a little intense the first time you try it because it has something for every single night for 4 weeks. But it doesn’t take very long really, about 10-15 minutes, which we usually spend reading books anyway, so this just makes it special.
The book has a symbol for every day that ties into the story. For example last night, the first night of advent, begins with talking about creation. So the symbol was Earth. So before we began, I printed out a little black and white clipart picture of Earth, one for each kid.
I set out the papers around the table and Jeremiah distributed 3 crayons to each person. Then we lit the first candle and sang a Christmas song (the book even gives song suggestions).
Then there was a memory verse that goes with the story, “In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth.” Genesis 1:1 was last night’s and both Linus and Juliette surprised us by saying the verse with no help – they already knew it. Gotta love that!
Then there is a story to read and the colored their pictures while I read.
Once I was done reading and kids finished up coloring, Jeremiah and I cut out their Earth pictures, I punched a hole in each and then tied a string on.
Earlier in the day I had told the kids if they unpacked their suitcases after our Thanksgiving trip to New Mexico, cleaned their rooms and made their beds that they would each be allowed to have a small (fake) tree in their rooms and some Christmas lights. They had all done their jobs thoroughly so we had them hang their newly colored Earth ornaments on the tree in their rooms.
Over all, it was a wonderful beginning to the advent season.
- Huckleberry Plum Pie - January 1, 2017
- Fresh Mango Sorbet - July 17, 2016
- Steak Caesar Salad - June 8, 2016
