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    Advent Family Traditions - 2014-12-07 05:43:08-05

Last month I shared our Thanksgiving family traditions, so let’s take a look at our Advent family traditions.  Advent occurs during the four weeks, prior to Christmas. It is a time of “anticipation” for the “arrival” of Christ’s birth (Christmas).

In future posts, I’ll share our Christmas family traditions. I’ve linked some of these ideas to previous blog posts for more information.

1. Read Advent Books Our favorite advent book was Jotham’s Journey. We read the other two books in the trilogy, but didn’t like the political correctness or the forced message in them. We LOVED Jotham’s Journey. Perfect to read each night of advent.Other books we enjoyed reading at Advent include: The Best Christmas Pageant Ever
 One Wintry Night (especially younger ages) The Grinch Who Stole Christmas (great message to young kids)
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2. Advent Calendars
 My mom made me a fabric, wall-size advent calendar that I still use.  It’s fun to move the bear around the house. You can also add your own advent ideas on each day by pinning an activity on the daily comment.

We’ve had several advent calendars over the years that my kids have enjoyed.
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3. Advent Readings
 At our breakfast devotions, we read Scripture specific to advent. If you are looking for an Advent Reading schedule, we include one in our Christmas Celebrations.
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4. Advent Wreath
 We “tried” to remember and light the candles in the wreath on the appropriate days.  As we read Jotham’s Journey at night, I tried to light the right advent wreath candles. I wished we had spent more time talking about the meaning of each candle in the Advent wreath.
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5. St. Nicholas Day I don’t really remember celebrating St. Nick’s Day, but my kids remember putting their shoes out for St. Nicholas to fill with treats. You can read more about St. Nicholas (especially if you are Protestant) … right here: St. Nicholas Day Activities or  Christmas in Germany activities for kids
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6. St. Lucia’s Day  My middle daughter loved St. Lucia, after reading Kristen’s Christmas.  I made her St. Lucia dress and she served St. Lucia Rolls to her siblings for several years.

On a final note, when our kids were young, we didn’t have all the advent resources that are available now.  I’ve already told Ashley that she needs to use Truth in the Tinsel as soon as her daughter can color. It’s excellent, with a truly Biblical message throughout Advent.

If you’re looking for fun, cool advent activities for kids , I highly recommend Truth in the Tinsel. You can see my full review here: Truth in the Tinsel Review

You can also get 20% discount by using this link HowToHomeschoolMyChild.com/tinsel & code: howtohomeschool

Question: How do you celebrate Advent? You can leave a comment by clicking here.