Celebrating Advent

Most people start to celebrate Christmas the day after Thanksgiving. Some love Christmas so much that they go up in October. The lights, trees, and decorations, go up. The kids start to make lists and wait, wait, wait for gifts. I love advent and many of the ideas that my friend Erin and I have found to help celebrate advent and stress that Christmas does not come until Dec. 25th. Somewhere the true meaning gets lost. We did a presentation at church last night but I thought I would share some of the ideas that all Christians can use to help the kids focus on preparing our hearts instead of just waiting for gifts.

No one knows exactly when advent began but we have early church documents around the 2nd century that list Christmas as December 25th. This was a time when Catholic Christians were still persecuted. The Council of Tours in 567 established advent as a time of fasting and preparation and the twelve days of Christmas from the 25th to the 6th on Epiphany (when the wise men came). The advent wreath came about in the Middle Ages. The 3 purple candles symbolize penance and the pink for joy, at the halfway point.

Some ideas for celebrating advent are:
1. The Nativity:
My friend Erin gave me this idea which we are starting this year. We put our nativity on the mantle with only the animals. Mary is on our TV cabinet with the angel as she tells Mary that she will have a baby. Joseph is elsewhere and will be visited by the angel next. The 3 wise men are on a bookshelf and will begin moving toward the mantle Christmas day. The shepards will begin moving the last week before Christmas. Baby Jesus is hidden and will be put out while the kids are sleeping on the night before Christmas or first thing Christmas morning. This focuses them first on Jesus before gifts. It also uses the nativity to act out the story.
2. The Jesse Tree
The Jesse tree can be a small tree, a branch, a poster board cut out of a tree. An ornament is placed on the tree every day except Sundays during advent. The ornaments can be bought or made. The kids make a small one for our tree representing each Bible story from creation, all through Jesus' family tree. The first ornament is a world for creation, the second is a man or woman for Adam and Eve, next, an apple for the fall of man, next, a rainbow for Noah's ark, this continues with a Bible reading and ornament every day. We have also started doing a snack to go with it. Adam's sparkling cider for the apple, animal crackers for Noah's ark, etc.
3. Sacrifice Manger
We put out a small manger made from Popsicle sticks, shoebox, or anything else that would work. The kids add a piece of yarn, hay, or yellow strips of paper for each good deed they do. This encourages good deeds and kindness and helps to put the focus back on preparing our hearts for Christ's coming. While we prepare our hearts, we also prepare a soft bed for Jesus, who will come on Christmas day. We have a little baby doll that we put in it on Christmas day.
4. St. Nicholas
The whole reason we have Santa Claus is St. Nicholas. St. Nicholas was the Bishop of Myra in the 3rd century. He was known for his generosity and good deeds. Many legends surround him including one that said that a father did not have money for his 3 daughter's dowrys so they were to be sold as slaves. He did his good deeds in secret so different legends tell the story of him throwing money down the chimney or in the window with the gold coins landing in the stockings hung on the chimney or in the shoes laid out. St. Nicholas' feast day is December the 6th. He also looks remarkably like Santa Claus. The word Santa means "Saint". We celebrate by the kids putting their shoes out. The morning of the 6th they are filled with gold chocolate coins, money, candy canes (which look like a bishop's miter or shepard's staff and symbolize the white purity of a sinless Jesus and the red for his blood shed). We will be adding by putting out a kids nativity and a book about St. Nick.
5. For Catholics, there is a great free program called Holy Heroes Advent Adventure where the kids have 2-3 short videos explaining parts of the mass, activities to do during advent, and they act out or do on a felt board the Jesse tree reading for the day. There are also crosswords, coloring pages, word searches and more.

These were just a few of the ideas we had. I can't include the whole presentation. These ideas have helped our family slowly prepare and build anticipation so we are not tired of Christmas by the time it gets here. It also focuses them less on gifts and more on the true meaning. I will try to go back and add pictures to this as I can. I have learned all of this in the last few years and it has helped me and our family so much! Hope this helps a little!