Saturday, December 29, 2012

An ADVENTure in time...

Well, Christmas has come and gone. Christmas is always my favorite time of year, not the least because it is also my birthday. I honestly have no other day to look really forward to, at least as far as getting attention and, to be honest, gifts. So perhaps that is why I kind of over do the advent calendars.

We have 5 advent calendars. I so highly recommend having at least some way to count down the days until Christmas with your children. One of my friends told me that she wraps up 25 books and lets her kids open one per day. Such a cool idea.

Our first advent calendar is a Winnie-the-Pooh calendar that is velcro, so you stick up the ornament/gift/Pooh character every day.

The second is a house that has doors to open. This is my favorite, because it is the most like the advent calendar that I had growing up. I got it from Chinaberry, which I recommend if you are looking for advent calendars because they have a nice selection.

The third also came from Chinaberry. It is called "The Story of Christmas," and every day you take our a small booklet and read a part of the Christmas story. Each booklet has a golden string attached, and so one year after Christmas I bought a very tiny tree that we hang the books on after we read them.

The fourth advent calendar I made at MOPs. Yes, you read that right, I made it. It is made of a cookie sheet, painted white with a grid drawn on it. Then (this was the difficult part) I made a different little magnet for each day. There are ones with buttons, with snowmen, with gifts, with ornaments. There is a picture of Betsy and of Felicity. I love it because I know how hard it was to make!

And then there is the girls favorite. It is on the computer, and a friend of ours sends it to us in an email every year. It is created by Jacquie Lawson, and I highly recommend it. The girls look so forward to seeing what will happen every day. And sometimes you get to create things (like a stocking or a snowflake) and that is their favorite part.

We also have an advent wreath. It is so easy to make your own. You simply make or buy a plain green wreath, and then place four small candle holders around the inside, and a large candle holder in the middle. For the middle use a large white candle, and then you can buy the 3 purple and 1 pink candles all together at Hobby Lobby.

Every Sunday night, we gather around the advent wreath. I have a book that I love called Just 25 Days Til Christmas by Rebecca Hayford Bauer that has the Bible readings for each candle. Then I teach the girls what each candle means (the purple represent hope, faith, and peace, the pink joy, and the white love). Then we put out the corresponding part of the manger scene (we have a manger scene that we just use for this purpose, one that isn't going to be damaged by small hands touching it). The hope candle is the first, and that is when we put out the stable. Faith is for Mary and Joseph, Peace is the angels, Joy is the shephards. When we light the Christ Candle (the white one) on Christmas Eve we put the baby Jesus in. Then, starting on December 26, the wise men begin their journey. They start at the front door and go all around the house until they get to the stable on January 6, which is Epiphany.

I know that I have already done a blog about our Epiphany celebration, so I won't go into all that again. But I wanted to share this, as I think that it is a really easy way to incorporate the story of Jesus' birth into your Christmas celebration, and in a tactile way that your kids can remember.

I recommend another advent book also, which has a lot of cool ideas of ways to teach kids by using their hands about the customs of Christmas and how they intersect with the story of Jesus' birth and that is The ADVENTure of Christmas by Lisa Whelchel.

We also have an elf on the shelf, which my children love so much that they honestly cry when he leaves on Christmas day. His name is Darren, and they look so forward to finding him every day. Our elf is not very adventerous, and so he just moves around from shelf to shelf. I have a feeling that Darren will stick around even long after the idea of Santa has passed them by, that is how much they love finding him every day.

Each day of the advent season is special in our house. There is so much to do in December! And every morning I read from the 25 Days til Chirstmas book during breakfast. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. I read it as a child and I still learn from it every year. Then at night before bed I read from Advent Storybook by Antonie Schneider. (Not a great title, but it's a great book!) It tells the story of Benjamin Bear, who is on his way to Bethlehem and all of the different people and animals he meets along the way.

You can imagine (if you know me at all) we have tons of Christmas books and movies, and while I admit I do try to squeeze them all in, this year I loosened up and we actually got more watched and read than when I harp and push about it. I had a fabulous advent season this year, a wonderful Christmas and birthday, and I honestly am looking forward to the new year. I hope that you can say the same, and I wish you peace and joy next year and beyond.

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