Advent is nothing new to me, but we just started a calendar last year. I'll get to that soon, but just a few thoughts on what I think Advent is truly all about.
Growing up going to church I can remember the beginning of Advent season from the lighting of the candles each Sunday leading up to Christmas. It was a special time. Families would be picked each year to light a candle and someone read a scripture about that particular candle. It was a spiritually time. It was time to stop and remember The Gift.
NOTE: I'll cover candles on Sunday, December 2nd. It being the first Advent Sunday. I'll share our own lighting of the Advent candles each Sunday leading up to Christmas.
Now not to go off on a rant, but I am not sure how I feel about what some people call their "Advent Calender" these days. It seems more like a countdown to Christmas when it is full of toys and candy. I see so many cute ideas all over the internet for Advent calendars and yet so many do not mention one word of God's gift. Maybe they do a separate calendar for that??? Or maybe I am confused about Advent. I always thought it was a time for preparing/looking forward to Jesus' birth. Feeling this way I had to find an answer so I looked it up.
Wikipedia says this...........
Advent is a season observed in many Western Christian churches as a time of expectant waiting and preparation for the celebration of the Nativity of Jesus at Christmas.
With that being said, when I decided last year to make our own Advent calendar I knew without a doubt it had to tell of what God's plan was going to be. I did not want a countdown to Christmas! Although there is nothing wrong with those and are FUN to do with your children. And in fact Matthew is working on one now. But for the boys I wanted to pay special attention of what the REAL meaning of Christmas is all about.
Most of the these pictures are from last year when I made the calendar. I have had to change it up just a tad to fit in our smaller home. And I'll show those pictures further down.
Since I don't sew I knew I would likely be using paper products. And I love how it turned out!
This was an inexpensive project. Simple and easy! Older children could easily help or make this.
I used small envelopes and added a strip of scrapbook paper to the bottom for color. Printed out the numbers 1-25, cut them out and simply glued everything on. Then I punched a hole in the top and added a ribbon. That is it!!! The ribbon was added because they hung on shutters last year.
I'll share the link below.
Inside each envelope I wanted a story leading up to Jesus' birth. I knew exactly where to go for help!
A wonderful blog I follow and have found lots of great ideas in the past, Mustard Seeds .
Janna always has amazing tutorials! You must check out her blog. Sorry I do not have the direct link. Go to November 12, Advent Countdown on Janna's blog and find the PDF file to download and print out the Advent activity instructions.
And here is how I changed it up this year. Yep, that simple. Tossed them all in a basket. Genius!
With no wall space to hang the shutters (said shutters in pictures) I had to come up with something different for our envelopes. The basket was perfect! Each day after opening an envelope and reading the text we will then hang it on the tree. A Christmas tree can never have too many ornaments!
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Come back tomorrow to see our Christmas Jar Memories for 2012......if you do nothing else this Christmas season make a point to make memories your children will talk about for years to come.
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