Our family celebrates Advent as the season to prepare for Christmas or the birth of the baby Jesus. The key thing about Advent for our family is that it leads us up to the birth of Jesus and takes us through the story leading up to Christmas so our children learn something about why we celebrate Christmas. This year we are going to celebrate Advent in a couple of different ways.
1. We have one of those cute Advent Calendar with the pockets for each day of December. I know many people who put treats or toys in these pockets and let their children open one each day starting on December 1st and leading up until the 25th. Instead of putting treats or toys in the pockets, we write down the names of 25 different people and/or families that are important to us. We put one “name” in each pocket. On that day, we take the name out of the pocket and talk about why they are important to us. We then say a little prayer for them making sure to honor what a blessing they are to us. We try to include teachers, friends, neighbors and family members in our pockets…
2. We have a book about Advent that we read each night that tells us a story and gives us a family game or activity to do.
3. This year we are going to make a “Jesse Tree”. This is something new for us that I read about on the internet. Basically you can either make a tree or use a small Christmas tree. Each day of Advent you make an ornament that represents a story or person that is important to the story of Jesus. If you google “Jesse Tree” you will see all sorts of ideas… A few examples are: 1. Make and apple ornament when you talk about Adam and Eve. 2. Make a rainbow or an ark ornament to talk about Noah. 3. A colorful coat for Joseph. 4. A harp for David etc… These sites have so many different ideas that represent different people/ stories from the bible. I am going to choose 25 that I feel are the most appropriate for the ages of my children. We are then going to make one ornament each day and hang it on our little 4 foot tree. I will try to post them as we go…
Please share your ideas in the comments section…
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mommyapolis 
Shannon,
My mom used to do something with my sisters and I that I’m going to start this year. She had a little wooden manger and a porcelin Nativty set. She would put out all of the figures except for the baby Jesus (because he wasn’t born yet), but she would put out the empty, little wooden manger. My sisters and I then were told that for each nice thing we did for someone else, we would get to earn a piece of yarn (hay) to put in the manger. So the more nice things we did for others, the softer baby Jesus’ bed was for him on Christmas when he was born.
My Nativity doesn’t really lend itself to this very well, but I just bought the Little People Nativity set which I think will work great for it. I’m going to make a little manger out of popsicle sticks as well. Thanks for all of your ideas! I love following you!
Laura 🙂
love it…