Preparing for Advent
This year, I am trying to be more purposeful about teaching my children the real meaning of Christmas. Not that we have not in the past years, but now that my kids are a bit older, I'm hoping to add some new family traditions that are focused around the real reason we celebrate. Traditions that we can add to as their age and understanding grows.
I'm just now starting to use the resource of the internet to find advent ideas, but would love your input. Websites, books, etc. Please share ideas you have used or plan to use, as I would love to hear them. Thanks in advance!
11 comments:
Tamara bought my kids the Little People nativity set this year. It's great in that the kids can play with (okay, chew on) the wise-men, Mary and Joseph etc., but we use it to teach and sort of act out the story. It's really great and I highly recommend it as a kid-friendly nativity.
Thanks for the input Mel. We got this set a few years back (was hard to get as you could not get it in Canada and had to order online) and love it! My kids play with it for ages and so great to be able to act out the story of baby Jesus!
Can I get on your blog? Pretty please?
Check out my blog and the link there. I started with the first Sunday of Advent, this coming Sunday and went till Christmas Eve, so 26 envelopes.
Hi Niki,
Have been reading your blog through a link on Sophie's. Funny how these blogs connect people all over the world. I too attended MCS, from 1985 - 1988. I live in Holland, where we have quite a strong Advent tradition that I am very fond of and have tried to adapt for my kids (a 4 and a 2 year old).
We have a candle holder for 4 candles and light a candle every night before dinner, accompanied by a (Dutch) song. The song says that it's the middle of the dark winter, and we're moving towards the light. In the first week it's just the first candle, we add one on every Sunday.
Also, we have a wooden
Advent calendar with little doors and 25 compartments. The kids open one door every night, after dinner. The compartments are filled with pieces from a (small) nativity set. The nativity set builds up during Advent, with the star and baby arriving last. Not enough pieces for 25 days though, so we add in some Christmas tree decorations and candy... Might skip the candy this year because I hate the dissapointed look of finding a sheperd when you wanted some chocolate!
Hope this helps!
Annelies
we read an advent story every night which is leading to the "real" christmas...(maybe you could find something online? mine is in german....)with every story another piece of the nativity set is added (like stars, flowers, animals who come for a visit to see baby jesus, and so on), so my girls get to do something every night as well.
leslie
I am going to have a go at making a Jesse Tree with the girls. I think Sophie may have done one last year so maybe she could tell you more. The idea is to put an ornament on the tree every day in advent, each is linked to a verse of scripture which takes you through the genealogy of Jesus until His arrival on Christmas day. I am going to use some twigs in a vase and we'll colour pictures that we can tie on each day. I'm going to use this site - www.eriercd.org/jessetree.htm - as my reference but there's loads on google. I think you can make it as simple as you want and it looks like fun!
Thanks Annelei and Teresia for your input. I do have a small wooden nativity that we might be able to do that with. Off to hunt it down amongst the Christmas stuff and work on that possibility.
And thanks Trees for the Joshua tree idea and link. I'll have a look and that and see if that might work for us. I'd never heard of it before, but it seems like a good way to focus on the Bible verses that tell the story.
Niki, I think the Joshua Tree is the rock and roll version of the Jesse tree. Both are good.
;)
I'm laughing very hard that I wrote Joshua tree instead of Jesse! You obviously know what band is influential in our household! :P
just stumbled over this blog and thought you might be interested in this one:
http://jsadw.blogspot.com/2009/11/advent-calendar.html
Thanks SO much, Teresia! So glad you found that and though of me! You are a sweetheart!!
It is the perfect and I'm totally adapting my plan so we can do that! I was wanting to do the Jesse tree but some of it was too hard to understand for my kids. I love learning about Jesus through verses, with one thing each day. This is like a modified idea of the Jesse tree. I'm off to figure out how to make what I need at least for the first few days.
And Trees, I'm going to call it my Joshua tree. So there! :P
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