Advent

I too need to learn how to better prepare myself. IMy prayer life definitely needs some focus! Seems like I try to do something for the Children, but need some adult ideas too. :)I am watching this for ideas too.The little that we do now:- we have a some books about Jesus' birth that are part of the kiddos bedtime routine each night during Advent.- we have an advent wreath I made a few years back, that we light the appropriate candles for family supper each night. Now that DS is getting older and asking questions, it is a good learning and discussion time.- we normally listen to music during the day in the background, as we go about our day. During Advent, I try to have some Christian Christmas music on for at least a portion of the day.

My boys go to Catholic Schools, so they are always bringing home wonderful little ideas for us to implement. Do you guys remember those paper ring chains we used to make to count down to Christmas? We do that for Advent. The rings are all purple (as a KG project, they don't do the pink rings on here, since you'd be adding it the weeks worth of pink in the middle...) At the end of the chain is a yellow star that says: Each evening after prayers are said, Take off one ring and hop in bed. When only the star is left to shine, You will know it's Christmastime! This way, the countdown remains Christ centered, which is nice since we try to counterbalance the whole "Santa thing" (which we really enjoy, but want the kids to know that although even though that's all good fun, this season is important for a reason). In addition to that, we have some simple words to say as we light the candles on our wreath... The first candle is Promise - we say "O Jesus, you are God's promise to us." The second is Hope - we say "O Jesus, we wait in hope for you." The third is Joy - "O Jesus, you bring joy to the world." The fourth is Love - "O Jesus, you teach us how to love." *As an adult, when I light the candles, I say a prayer to myself following the "theme" of the week - one of Promise, Hope, Joy and Love.* They also have an advent song that's sung to the music of "O Christmas tree", but I'll spare you. :rolleyes:

journey, i know what you mean about focus in the prayer life. Good idea about a book each night. And I got out the wreath and we lit a purple candle tonight. 2 boys I like the simple prayer that goes with each week and we will do that each evening too. And please, 2 boys, type the song! K would love it, I know. we will do the rings tomorrow, and a great idea to tie in the colors with advent. love the poem at the end. and I was thinking of Mary preparing for Jesus to be born, and I think next Tuesday (Immaculate Conception) we will bring maternity clothes to the pregnancy care center for mothers preparing for their babies. A few months ago I had brought some things and they said they were in need of them. I love your ideas, if you think of more please add them!

It depends how old your kids are if this would make sense to them. But when we were young my parents had a tradition that really helped us with some of the true meaning of Advent and Christmas. Since Advent is a time of waiting - a time of waiting for Christ's coming and birth....And a time of waiting for the Christmas morning presents from the kids perspective, we celebrated by "waiting" and by prayerful decorating. Let me try and explain briefly. First and foremost, any nativity that we set up would not have baby Jesus in it. On Christmas day we would read the story of Christ's birth and then each of us (my sisters and I) would have a baby Jesus to go put in a nativity ---- we had multiple nativities in the house. For the actual weeks of Advent, we would decorate slowly. The decoration process was gradual and always on a Sunday. We would read scriptures from the Gospels each time. The first week of Advent was our "greenery" week. Sometimes we would just read from the gospel or sometimes my mom would remind us of why the greenery became a part of Christmas - the symbolism of an evergreen for the tree etc. We would put up green garland and the tree - nothing on it, just the tree. We did that on the first Sunday. The second Sunday of Advent we would put up lights. The lights would be both inside and out and of course we would pray as a family and read scriptures before hand. The third Sunday of Advent we would put up the decorations on the tree and the "village" type stuff.....any of the other decorative items. Of course this started with a scripture reading, then decorating together, then a prayer. The fourth Sunday of Advent we would bake any cookies/candy/etc and we could put gifts under the tree. It was all a part of the celebration but we had to wait until then so that we were reminded that the whole purpose was to wait for Jesus and to celebrate as we got closer and closer to Him. Now that my sisters and I are all married and out of the house, my mom still reminds us of the tradition: we all get mistletoe the first week of Advent from her, we all get a candle the second week of Advent, and we all get a decoration for our tree the third week of Advent. The fourth week she invites us all over for the baking/cooking of lots of goodies. And even though this wasn't a part of the discussion I must say that I still to this day believe in giving a gift (usually a smaller one) on Epiphany - after all, that's when the gifts were actually given to Jesus. My family still does this with each other. It marks the end of the liturgical season and helps us remember the purpose of the Christmas celebration.

shelly that is a beautiful tradition, and how neat that your mom still passes that on every year.I hope to incorporate that this year--I like the decorating in stages, because then you wait for the next part in anticipation.thank you for sharing