Rediscovering Advent!!! (this is a long post!!)

Advent is such a beautiful time of anticipation.

The children really enjoy this time in our house and how we prepare our hearts and home to receive the Christ child. This year I was very convicted by our parish priest to really live “little Lent”, which is the season of Advent….. to “rediscover” the joys of awaiting a Messiah. I want to deck the house out in purple and have the children live this Advent season in a different way than we ever have. So here are some of the things that we are doing….

I ordered this cool purple table cloth from Amazon that should arrive tomorrow for our dining room table. I figured our advent wreath in the middle would be a beautiful addition.

So I thought I was going to be super “clever” and put up beautiful purple bows on our Christmas tree for Advent until we awaited the Christmas season…..Silly me to think that I would be pioneering a new thought!!! Check out this gorgeous tree from Catholic Inspired!!! I mean…so beautifully done. I figured the hubs and I could put up the tree and our white lights and then add some purple bows and purple balls…simply gorgeous!

Looks like I will also be grabbing one of the baby doll cribs for this idea. We love to put up our nativity scenes without baby Jesus and further grow the anticipation of awaiting the Child Jesus.

I contacted Sarah over at Three Roses Design to see if she could  create me a banner in pink and purple “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” banner…and she did!!!!!

She sent me the link today!!!

I have replaced my mantle candles with purple pillar candles as well. I’m excited to see how everything comes out and will post pics when I can.

We have also decided to add this book to our nightly prayer time with the kids. I recently found out that there are three books in this series.

We read Jotham’s Journey last year and will read Tabitha’s Travels next year. If you are interested in these books, you can purchase them on Amazon. com.

During this season of Advent from now until Christmas Day, we are going to spend more time “anticipating” than celebrating the Christmas season. We are going to spend from Christmas Day til the Epiphany in the Christmas season. (I will blog on our Christmas celebrations in a later blog.) Here are some of our Advent celebrations……

• Learn about some great saints and heralds in the bible. John the Baptist was a herald of the gospel, proclaiming the coming of the Christ. We will spend a homeschool lesson talking about his life and sharing some honey and tea in his honor. We will talk about what is means to wander in the desert and make a “fast” later in the week from TV or a fun snack. We will also discuss the various “players” in the bible.
• Make a Jessie Tree. The kiddos and I decorated paper ornaments last year and laminated them to start our first Jessie Tree. We found a great printable online that included bible verses. We can learn about great “players” in the bible and about Jesus’s family tree. (You can click on the picture for the link to print some of these out.) We use a small fake tree that I bought at CVS years ago.

• Write a loveletter. I am going to write up a loveletter on special paper for each member of my family.  Tuck it into their stocking for Christmas day. Tell them how I feel about them and why I love being with them.
• Learn a Christmas carol. We will pick a Christmas carol and learn all the words to perform as a family for our family Christmas party.
• Advent Angels.  We will prepare homemade presents for our cousins for our annual gift exchange. We will offer nightly prayers for the advent angels that we have selected.
• Celebrate Feast days. We will celebrate the feast of St. Nick on Dec. 6; the Immaculate Conception on Dec. 9, (since the 8th falls on a Sunday during Advent); the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe on Dec. 12; and the feast of St. Lucy on Dec. 13. ( I will do a separate blog on these.) However, since the Feast of St. Nick is on Friday, I will share those traditions with you now. On the evening of the feast of St. Nick, the children gather around my husband or I and we read them one of the stories about St. Nick. Typically, this story:

This typically leads to a little discussion about how we can be “St. Nick” to people in our lives. The children then ask how they can be “St. Nick” to others throughout the holidays…. They might wrap a story for a sibling and say that it is from “St. Nick”. Then we help the children put out their shoes so that someone who “wants to be like St. Nick” can leave them some candy and toys in their shoes.

I took these pictures last year on the feast of St. Nick:

The kids love the excitement of coming downstairs to check their shoes to see what St. Nick left them.

• We also keep a collection of books in a basket near our fireplace. The children enjoy flipping through these seasonal books and reading them with mom or dad. Here are some of our favorites:

As a family, we made a decision years ago NOT to incorporate Santa into our holiday traditions. We have plenty of family that do, and our children have always done a great job not challenging other children or family about his existence. We tell our children that Santa Claus came from this belief in St. Nick and a desire to celebrate the birth of Jesus though presents. This is a great book to illustrate the true meaning of Christmas.

You can get all these on Amazon. I tend to buy a new Christmas book or two every year to add to our collection. These are a few of our favorites. I  know I have more packed in our Christmas bins that I will find later. =)

• We also make a special trip to the library and take out other books about Christmas. This is a great time to learn about Christmas in other cultures and countries as well. Ask the librarian his/her recommendations as well. Librarians are a tremendous resource. They might also know of local events for celebrating the holidays.
• Purchase and wrap our advent angel gifts- our church has ages and suggestions of kids who need stuff for Christmas on construction paper angels taped around the back of our church during Advent. The kids pick a child that is close to their age; shop for them, and wrap the present.
• Pick out a Christmas tree.- Support a local tree farm and they will let you pick your tree out yourself. We only paid $35 for our 11 ft tree last year. The kids also got coloring books, candy canes and hot chocolate from the owner.
• Indoor snowball fight. We started this tradition last year. It’s a “girl verse boy” game in our house. I grab two laundry baskets full of matched white socks. The boys get one basket and the girls get the other. Than we man our “forts” (blankets thrown across couches and chairs) and the game begins. It’s hilarious watching people run out of “snowballs” and get pelted as they try to gain more around their forts.
• Look at Christmas lights.
  We typically try to go look at Christmas lights on the feast of St. Lucy as she is the patron saint of lights. I will say that we look at Christmas lights as often as we can when driving home from activities or family gatherings.
• Have a family “purge”. This advent season is a great time to go through our toys and clothes and to think of those less “fortunate” than us. We have everyone in the family to pick a few things that they can give away or offer to someone else.
• Perform thoughtful deeds. The children and I are starting a campaign called Touched by His Light….much like the “Random Acts of Kindness” that are on Pinterest. We will be spending much of our Advent and Christmas seasons looking for ways to spread the love of Christ with those around us. We will be working on different activities that cost money and some that are just giving of our time. (check back at the beginning of next week for that blog as well…)
• Have a Christmas dance party. The hubs has spent some considerable amount of time creating Christmas CDs of our family favorites. We love to pop these in during car trips and family hangouts. A dance party over the holidays is always predictable!!!
• Visit or perform in a live nativity. For the past two years, the children have participated in a live nativity with our local co-op. It is such a joy to watch them!
• Decorate the house to Christmas music. The children love to prepare our house for the upcoming holidays. Everywhere there are reminders that we are preparing our home to welcome “the King of Kings”!
• Make Christmas cards for the military. The kids loved when we did this last year. They got so creative with some of these cards.
  
• Christmas caroling for the elderly. I am trying to arrange an opportunity to do some Christmas caroling for some of the residents of an assisted living establishment near our house. I used to work for one of these facilities when I was a teenager and I remember fondly how much they enjoyed having kids come. =)
• Decorating the Christmas tree. Our family will spend Christmas Eve decorating our Christmas tree for Christmas morning. It is such a special time for us. For the kids, it one more reminder that Christ is born the next day!!!

As we enter into this season of Advent, like the manger, may we make “room” in our heart for the Christ -child. May he find your heart to be open to Him and the love He has for you.

God bless,

Tammi