Celebrating Advent




I am SO enjoying the Christmas season this year. Last year was a bit of a blur since we were still getting settled here and had a small baby. I was content to just to get some basic decorations and have a modestly respectable Christmas celebration. It was our 1st Christmas in a long time with Rob's parents so it was fun. But, this year when we sat down at Thanksgiving we decided that it was about time that we create our own family traditions and figure out how we want to spend our Christmas as a family. One thing I've been talking over for a while with Rob, and Mary, and different friends was that I really disliked the materialism associated with Christmas and wanted to do something different with my kids. When they think of Christmas we don't want them to think of a massive pile of presents under the tree. We want them to associate it with the wonderful gift of Jesus Christ, and to spend it in a way that would actually honor Him. But then the question was what to do? What could we do that puts a different focus on Christmas, makes it more meaningful, but still enjoyable for all of us?



The answer for us has been the celebration of Advent. I honestly had no idea what that meant before this year, but I got curious since my brother-in-law is Austrian and celebrates Advent with great meaning. Then I happened online and several of the blogs that I read were talking about the observance of Advent as a family. So, I read up on how different families celebrate Advent and Rob and I spent a lot of time talking about what we could do as a family. I started reading with this blog: http://allthingshendrick.blogspot.com/2010/11/christmas-christmas-time-is-here.html
http://allthingshendrick.blogspot.com/2009/11/advent-study.html. Sorry I don't know how to create links, so no such luck from me :-) We got really excited about it and have had so much fun coming up with creative ways to get our kids excited about the Christmas story and the time we spend together as a family around this season. So although I'm sure we will make some changes in the years to come and perfect the idea much more, but for now we are finding it very meaningful for our family. Every day the kids open an envelope from our special box that tells them our family activity for the day. Our kids are really young, so our activities are quite simple: Make a card for someone, learn a new christmas song, bake cookies, go to a Christmas party together, build a stable (fort) in the living room, ect..... Then each day we have specifically in small doses worked through the Christmas story with the kids. First we worked through a beautiful book of the Christmas story that was broken up into many different pieces of the story. Next we have taken our Fisher Price nativity and each night are acting out a part of the story using all the characters. The kids are fascinated and LOVE it. Then we sing some carols and have worked on memorizing a verse altogether. Every day is a new little family adventure and the kids are becoming really familiar with HIS story in a fun way. I personally have been working through a great online Advent devotional that focuses on God's plan in sending Jesus Christ to redeem us from Adam down to Christ and then looking ahead to His 2nd coming. It has really made the truths of Christmas pop out at me this year. http://www.aholyexperience.com/2010/11/update-free-jesse-tree-advent-devotional/ I'll attempt to post some pictures of our Christmas/ ADVENT fun so far :-)

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