Starting our Advent Season Traditions

Oh my goodness, how is it December already?! (And a week over at that!) This year has just flown by! However, it has been a very good year. More than I could have imagined really. Don’t get me wrong, there were definitely some trying times when I thought I would lose my mind, but we made it through. Now here we are in December, about to celebrate Christmas! But wait! Before Christmas comes the often forgotten Advent Season, and that my friends, is probably better than Christmas.

Why? Advent is the season of preparation for not only Christmas, but the second coming of Jesus. It is that time where we prepare for the holidays and we prepare our souls at the same time. It’s that big anticipation, the big build up, and to me, that is usually more fun than the actual event, right?

Now, I am no expert on the Advent season, and there have been many years that I have been just downright awful at celebrating it. (I did say it was often forgotten didn’t I?) Christmas would just spring up on me and I was barely prepared for that. So, I want to take the time to do some research on different ways to celebrate Advent with my family so that as my children grow, we can start different traditions when they are ready for them and I won’t get caught unaware. (It sounds good at least, right?!) So come along with us as we start our Advent season traditions!

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The Advent Wreath

My first memories of Advent span wayyyyyy back to first grade when my parents sent me to Catholic school. (The same one I teach at now!) I don’t know how anyone who went there could forget about the Advent wreath. They have a beautiful tradition of gathering around the Advent wreath each morning, singing the Advent Candle Song, hearing a reading, saying prayers, and finishing by singing Come Lord Jesus. I loved this tradition so much and it stuck with me so hard, that I still knew all the words to the songs when I returned to teach there 10 years after graduating.

My family never had an Advent wreath in our home growing up, but it is a tradition that I want to start in our home. I have the Advent wreath, we just haven’t used it yet! I have been doing some research on this. Some families light the candles each Sunday night at supper; some do a prayer service and some don’t. I did find a short devotional do with the wreath on Hope, Peace, and Love. The best part is that it is free! It would be beautiful to light the candles at supper time, I just don’t know how well that would work right now trying to wrangle 2 kids at the table and keep Mia off of it! Maybe not this year, but in the coming years right?!

Setting up the Nativity

One of my favorite parts of decorating for Christmas is setting up the Nativity. My mom had a beautiful glazed white ceramic nativity scene that my grandmother made her and I loved to look at it. Getting to unwrap each piece from its protective covering and arrange it in the stable always seemed to put me in a reverent spirit. It was so beautiful; I just wanted to play with it! 😀 However, that was a big NO in the house, (clearly!) so I remember trying to make my own a few times (and failing).

Now I am grown up with my own household and my own nativity set.

Mine is a beautiful hand painted set given to us as a wedding present from my Godmother. I am TERRIFIED something in it will break! Some years I’ve only set up about half of it because it is so large and more pieces = greater change of breaking right?? This year I don’t know if I will set it up at all 🙁 However, I do have a solution!

I have a second set! This nativity set is secondhand that I picked up off a garage sale before I was married because I wanted something to set up in my apartment. I am setting this Nativity scene out this year and not only will I not worry about it getting broken, I will encourage Mia to play with it.

The greatest way to teach the Christmas story is to become involved with it and the best way to do that is to play!

Giving Manger

Here is another tradition that we have at school. I actually forgot about it because we don’t do it in the junior high building… Maybe we should start?! Anyways… The idea is that you build a manager for the baby Jesus by doing acts of kindness. For each act of kindness you do, you lay a piece straw (or string) in the manger. On Christmas Day, baby Jesus is placed in the manger. I remember doing this back when I was in school! It was in a little nook behind the water fountain back then, so you’d think about something good you did when you went to get a drink!

Mia will be so ready for this one next year! She is doing so much better with knowing “good” things to do and “bad” things. I just need too find a place to put it so all the pieces don’t get scattered around… I don’t want the cats to think that it is their play toy!

Shepherd on the Search

I think about everyone has heard of Elf on the Shelf, but have you heard of Shepherd On the Search? I saw these on Facebook last year leading up to Christmas, but I didn’t purchase one as I knew Mia was too little for it yet. Then, we were gifted one on Christmas from Cody’s aunt. I pulled it out the first Sunday of Advent and Mia loves it! We have read the story multiple times and have played hide and seek with the shepherd over and over again. I tried to get Mia to name him and his current name is Hadley (her cousin 😀 ). I don’t think I will officially name him by writing that one in the book yet as it will probably change in the next year or two.

The idea is that the shepherd helps to explain the story of Christmas and some of the qualities of Jesus while moving around the house looking for baby Jesus. Mia can already tell you that he is “looking for baby Jesus” and “baby Jesus lost.” 😀 The creators have a corresponding website that has an idea for each day leading up to Christmas if it is hard to come up with ideas on your own, but Mia isn’t quite to their level. It isn’t hard to fix that though! We don’t do activities with the shepherd every day, but we pick one here and there to focus on.

For example, one of the activities is to teach that shepherds love their sheep and Jesus is our Good Shepherd. We made the sheep and talked about how shepherds take care of sheep and you take care of things you love.

Advent Calendar

There are ALL sorts of different Advent calendars! Just googling it brings up a plethora of ideas! I don’t have one at home this year. (Ran out of time!) I think some ideas are definitely more Christmas oriented than others. (Don’t get me wrong, I love chocolate probably more than the next person but how does that help prepare me for the birth of Christ in any other way than stretching my stomach for all the good food??)

I remember making paper loop chains that counted down to Christmas when I was little and it was SO MUCH FUN to undo one loop at the bottom of the chain every night. The chain got shorter and shorter as we went. Again, this paper chain probably doesn’t have a whole lot to do with preparing for Christmas, but that is easily fixed! It’s paper. Write on it! Write down acts of kindness to do, people to pray for, and/or bible readings to do! The possibilities are endless. Don’t like the paper chain idea? Google it. I’m sure you’ll come up with something that is your style!

Edited to include our Printable Advent Calendar from 2019! – Click Here!

My Advent Season

Now all of these things are wonderful to do with the kids and they are fun for me too, but I also wanted to do something for myself. The Advent Season and Christmastime are so busy prepping for everybody else! I picked up a book that our parish priest gave to us a year or two back (That I hadn’t read yet. Sorry Father!) and I am reading a chapter in it a night.

This book is wonderful so far! It gives so many details into the biblical Christmas story that you can’t get from reading the Bible yourself. Like those long lists of Jesus’ ancestors that are super boring? The author, Scott Hahn, explains why they are in there and why they are so important! If you haven’t got a chance to read it yet, I encourage you to pick up a copy! (Especially if your from my parish and haven’t read the one Father gave you yet! I also just opened the one from this year. It’s from the same author and looks really interesting!! I’ll have to get to that one next!)

Celebrate!

Now, I know this post is a little late if you wanted to have everything prepped and ready before Advent, but with as busy as everything is, were you going to get started on the first day anyways?! 😀 I didn’t! Traditions don’t have to be started on a specific day, they can start right now! (I also don’t advise you to start a whole bunch of them at once. Give yourself a break!) But, if you don’t do something, pick one to try out. Our children will remember the traditions we start and activities we do long after they forget what gift they had under the tree.

What traditions do you do to celebrate Advent in your house? What makes the season special in your home? I love to hear all the different ideas! Comment below! Also be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss a post! Want to keep up with how our Advent season is going? Follow us on Instagram @blessedmamalife! Happy Advent Season!