We've started a new tradition in our family this year: celebrating Advent. Ryan grew up celebrating Advent, but it was new to me. I'll let author Lisa Whelchel explain it: "The word advent means "to come," and it refers to Jesus' coming to earth as a baby on Christmas day. The season of Advent is all about looking forward to celebrating the day when our almighty God stepped into history as a human being." Whelchel wrote a great book called The ADVENTure of Christmas, and we're using a lot of her ideas and projects in our celebration. Our final MOPS meeting of the year focused on how to celebrate Advent, the meaning of the symbols, and actually making our own Advent wreaths to take home. 
The meeting got me really excited about beginning this tradition in our family. Advent begins on the fourth Sunday before Christmas (this year it fell on November 30). Every family does things a little differently, and ours is no exception. Many families use Advent calendars with doors, drawers, etc. for the children to open each day. Instead of the traditional calendar, Eli has an envelope to open each day. Each envelope contains a little treat (a couple of M&Ms), two small "gluing projects," and a coloring page. This photo shows Eli finding his first M&M...
Since Eli is really into gluing, he has a paper Advent Calendar Christmas Tree that he gets to glue numbered paper ornaments on to count the days of Advent. 
The other little gluing project is that each day he gets one verse from the Christmas story from the Gospel of Luke that he glues onto a piece of construction paper. Each day we read as much of the story as we have. The coloring page each day is a page from a Christmas Story Advent Coloring Book that has a piece of the Biblical account of Christmas along with a picture to color that corresponds to that piece of the story. (Anyone who wants to use these materials can just click on the links; I didn't come up with all of this on my own!). We're also doing miscellaneous projects every few days to illustrate some aspect of Advent in a hands-on way. It's been a lot of prep work, but well worth it! One part of Advent that many families do the same is that each Sunday we light another candle on our Advent wreath (there are five total, each with a different meaning) and talk about what that week's candle means. Eli has been excited to help light the candles and blow them out. 
It's really fun introducing this special tradition at a time when Eli is so into learning and doing. Last night after cleaning up his toys he looked up excitedly and said "want to do Advent now!" I think it'll become a tradition that he treasures!
The meeting got me really excited about beginning this tradition in our family. Advent begins on the fourth Sunday before Christmas (this year it fell on November 30). Every family does things a little differently, and ours is no exception. Many families use Advent calendars with doors, drawers, etc. for the children to open each day. Instead of the traditional calendar, Eli has an envelope to open each day. Each envelope contains a little treat (a couple of M&Ms), two small "gluing projects," and a coloring page. This photo shows Eli finding his first M&M...Since Eli is really into gluing, he has a paper Advent Calendar Christmas Tree that he gets to glue numbered paper ornaments on to count the days of Advent. The other little gluing project is that each day he gets one verse from the Christmas story from the Gospel of Luke that he glues onto a piece of construction paper. Each day we read as much of the story as we have. The coloring page each day is a page from a Christmas Story Advent Coloring Book that has a piece of the Biblical account of Christmas along with a picture to color that corresponds to that piece of the story. (Anyone who wants to use these materials can just click on the links; I didn't come up with all of this on my own!). We're also doing miscellaneous projects every few days to illustrate some aspect of Advent in a hands-on way. It's been a lot of prep work, but well worth it! One part of Advent that many families do the same is that each Sunday we light another candle on our Advent wreath (there are five total, each with a different meaning) and talk about what that week's candle means. Eli has been excited to help light the candles and blow them out. It's really fun introducing this special tradition at a time when Eli is so into learning and doing. Last night after cleaning up his toys he looked up excitedly and said "want to do Advent now!" I think it'll become a tradition that he treasures!
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1 comment:
what a neat way to celebrate, I plan on doing something similar when Simon is old enough to understand a little bit. lighting the advent candles on Sunday is something that I really really miss and I wish that we did at CBC.
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