We attended a Christmas brunch for Baobei at a hotel yesterday... fun to dress up! I was pleased that Gwen could still wear this Santa dress for the third year in a row. :-)Preparations~ we have our tree decorated and a pretty table arrangement of fresh pine and other greens, made by the Boy Scouts, on our table. I've shopped, both online and here in the markets. Madelyn made some cookies on Saturday and I'm going to a cookie exchange on Friday. We've talked about taking a family picture to send with a Christmas letter, but we haven't done anything about that yet. We've been playing our old favorite Christmas recording, Amy Grant's "Tennesse Christmas." The girls both have Christmas concerts in the next week, and Seth has a middle school Christmas dance on Friday. The girls and I have read some of our Christmas books and today we watched a Christmas dvd after school together. We're counting down the days until we head back to US to be with our families for the holiday break, especially Caleb, who has been working like crazy and needs a break from school!
The first Advent candle was lit in church on Sunday, and scriptures from Isaiah read.
"For unto us a child is born, to us a son is given,
And the government will be on His shoulders.
And He will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."
There are so many things to do to "prepare" for Christmas, so many activities to take part in. I feel like I was good at providing meaningful things for our family to do when the children were all young, things that pointed us to Jesus, the real reason for Christmas.
Now that our family encompasses all these different ages, I'm not sure what our Advent season should look like. I can still shop and bake and play Christmas music. But how can I bring JESUS to our time of preparation?
I'd love your ideas, for all ages of children as well as adults. What Advent ideas work in your family and remind you all of the reason for the season?
7 comments:
Look at your girls! They're growing up and into such beautiful little ladies!
It's hard to keep the focus firmly on Jesus during the holidays (Holy Days) but if it's there all year long (and I know it IS) then it won't get lost in the weeks leading up to Christmas.
xoxo
Donna
Our Blog: Double Happiness!
You and your girls are beautiful!
Please do share your advent ideas here!
Kristen, I was hoping for YOUR advent ideas! :-)
Lynne - I was thinking the same thing as Kristen. What ideas did you have for when the kids when younger? I'm struggling!
I'm with Kristen and Judith! But Donna said is best... He lives in our hearts all year long.
A couple of ideas from when the kids were younger...
We would act out the birth of Jesus using the nativity set. Have the shepherds under a chair in one part of the room, wisemen under another, they travel across the room to come find and worship Jesus. Another thing the boys loved was on Christmas morning we would have the wisemen and shepherds from our nativity up in their rooms, and they would have to have them walk down stairs to find baby Jesus in the manger.
I used to comb through all the Christmas books at the public library to find the ones that focused on the real meaning of Christmas. Over the years I have purchased a number of Christmas books also... just tried to keep the focus on Jesus in what we were reading, same with Christmas videos.
We used to make and send Christmas cards a man my dad knew who was in prison.
We learned Luke 2 together. It's amazing how well little bitty kids can memorize scripture!
Family Life Today has a book and set of tree ornaments called "Adornaments" that I still use with the girls. Each of twelve ornaments has a place in this story that you read that tells about the different names for Jesus, like Lion of Judah, Lamb of God, Living Water, etc. The kids can put the ornament on the tree after you read the part in the story about it. I like to do one each day. A couple of years ago Family Life Today came out with a kid friendly nativity set called "What God Wants For Christmas." It has a devotion type booklet that leads you through all the characters in the nativity poem style, and ends with the last box containing a little mirror... the child looks into the box and sees that what God wants for Christmas is YOU! It's neat. You can find Family Life stuff in a Christian bookstore or at their website.
So that's a few little kid activities... anyone have great ideas for older kids and adults?!
I love that your request for suggestions turned into your giving suggestions, Lynne. You dear thing.
We still do our advent calendar with an activity for every day. Sometimes the activities are little things, but the kids do look forward to it each day. I try hard to put things in there like Friday's "event": we cleaned out our shoe closet for a collection at school sending shoes to Haiti. We always get at least one name from the Angel Tree at church and then the shopping becomes an advent activity. Another one or two of our activities is making gifts-- those chocolate/pretzel/m&m things are standard now, and this year we're making bookmarks to go in the books we're giving to our cousins.
The kids still love reading The Advent Book, which is a series of pages that are elaborate doors, each with a moment from the Christmas story behind it. In fact this evening all three of mine were around me on the sofa, taking turns opening "their" doors. Loved it.
Love to you.
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