Starting up our Advent is such a fun time and one I look forward to each Christmas season.
There are so many fun things to do!
I am trying to be more and more intentional about teaching Chase the true meaning of Christmas.
We do Santa (and that Elf on the Shelf thing too) at our house, but we try not to go overboard, using the old "Santa's watching, you better behave" stuff. After all, don't we want our children to act appropriately during the other 11 months of the year? Sometimes I struggle with the fact that we strive to teach our children about Jesus and how important it is to share his love, then Christmas comes and we basically lie to our kids about this magical guy who, let's face it, is a bit of an idol.
In any case, we sprinkle in some Santa activities with big doses of the real main guy, JESUS.
I thought I would share the activities we are doing this year for advent in hopes it would inspire others.
We are reading along with The Storybook Bible's advent plan (download it HERE!) this year for the first time. Meaning, we do the fun advent "family" activity that day and then read the bible story that evening at bedtime. The Storybook Bible is a GREAT resource to have on hand.
I love how it is written in true story form, and the illustrations are captivating!
The great thing about planning it all out ahead of time is that if something isn't going to work out one day, you can just switch things around!
We've already had to do that and I know it won't be the last! :)
sock advent tutorial here
Day 2 - Watch The Grinch (You can even make this Grinch Punch!)
Day 3 - Christmas Nativity Craft. We did this one!
Day 4 - Buy an ornament for the tree (a nice way to remember what your child was "into" that year!)Day 5 - Read a new Christmas book (During the Christmas season we try to only get one new one out per day so reading them is always exciting!)
Day 6 - Pick out a gift for Gifts of Grace
Day 7 - Write a letter to Santa
Day 8 - Read the Christmas Story by the tree and have hot chocolate
Day 9 - Charlie Brown Christmas show and popcorn
Day 10 - Christmas pancakes (TONS of ideas HERE!)
Day 11 - Make Chex Mix
Day 12 - Make a special Christmas present (it's a secret!)
Day 13 - Make Christmas cookies
Day 14 - Cookie Decorating party with friends
Day 15 - Put together Blessing Bags
Day 16 - Make/decorate a nativity
Day 17 - Drive around and look at Christmas lights
Day 18 - Picnic dinner by the Christmas tree
Day 19 - Random Act of Kindness Day
Day 20 - Christmas at the Zoo
Day 21 - Jolly Days at the Children's Museum
Day 22 - Make Jesus' birthday cake
Day 23 - Act out the manger scene with nativity toys
Day 24 - Christmas craft
Day 25 - Jesus' Birthday!
What are some of the activities you and your family do to celebrate the birth of Jesus?
What an awesome time of year to start new traditions based on truth!
1 comments:
My kidlet's are still little, so we haven't had the Santa talk, but I'm thinking of just skipping it and my husband thinks I'm a grinch! lol
I don't remember really believing in Santa so I don't see the big deal.
My sister does a big Santa thing where her husband walks stomps on the roof on Christmas eve and then she runs to the kids rooms and tells them to be quiet or Santa will skip their house. As a result her 12 year old still believes in Santa lol. This year she was worried about him being made fun of so she asked him why he so strongly believes in Santa and it was the roof stomping that sold him and that he doesn't talk about it much at school because it's a personal thing! lol
Anyway, I just wanted to stop by and say hi, I'm Grace and I'm clicking through old influence linked up blogs because I'm thinking of going this year and wanted to read some bloggers beforehand =)
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