Creating an Advent Tradition

One of our Nativity sets

Growing up, we always had a chocolate Advent calendar and my four sisters and I took turns opening the little window and eating the chocolate. We didn't have any specific traditions for Advent that I can remember, and once our son was two we wanted to create some meaningful traditions of our own. For the first couple years after my son was born, we had the chocolate calendar and a few random activities but nothing very organized. This year I finally have something I created that we can follow each day. I gained my inspiration from Intentional Homeschool's 2011 and 2012 Advent posts. We truly desire to celebrate the birth of Jesus with a spirit of giving and have that be the most important thing our son takes into his heart during this season. We really enjoy spending family time together and we're looking forward to this.

Our new Avian Advent Calendar (and my son's very busy school desk)

My sister sent us a surprise Advent gift today ... a lovely Avian Advent calendar (from the Metropolitan Museum of Art). Each day of Advent there is a little door to open with a bird inside that you hang on the little tree. We'll be doing this daily along with letting my son open a chocolate Advent calendar like we had growing up. He always gets so excited about that.

I created a list of activities we'll do each day. Then I went searching for a list of Bible verses we can reflect on and discuss. I love this printable I found of Advent Bible verse cards which have the verses we'll use each day.

Our Advent Activities:

• Color a picture for the garbage man (the man who smiles and waves to my son every week while we watch him through the window)
• Listen to Christmas music and sing carols at home
• Have eggnog and make Reindeer cookies
• Go to Festival of Lights and drive around the neighborhood looking at the wonderful Christmas lights
• Watch Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer
• Make hot chocolate and stir with candy canes
• Visit "Grandma Betty" (lady we adopted at a nearby care center); bring homemade Christmas card
• Read story of the real St. Nicholas here or here
• Create a food pantry box of food to donate
• Go outside with telescope and binoculars to marvel at the stars
• Make homemade suet treats for the birds
• Read The Crippled Lamb by Max Lucado
• Make our own Christmas snowflakes
• Create a donation box of goods to donate and bring to Goodwill
• Make and decorate Christmas cookies
• Deliver Christmas cookie plates to neighbors
• Footprint Reindeer Craft (another link here)
• Make homemade Christmas cards to give to our family at Christmas
• Go Christmas caroling 
• Read story of The Very First Christmas with Nativity Stickers
• Watch Nester the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey (one of my childhood favorites)
• Make Eggnog Ice Cream from Stacy Makes Cents
• Read My Birthday, Jesus' Birthday by Holly Davis
• Make birthday cake for Jesus' Birthday

Two weeks before Christmas, we'll start listening to Karyn Henley's Christmas Night (Before I Dream) CD bible stories and songs at bedtime. There are 13 of them, so we'll start on Dec. 12th and finish on Christmas Eve.

I'm really looking forward to creating some neat family memories and a tradition to treasure. What Advent traditions do you have in your family? I'd love to hear about them.

Thanks for visiting!