For whatever reason, the word "advent" wasn't always used in the church I belonged to growing up. We still had our special Christmas services, but the mention of advent, and the lighting of the specific candles was missing. However, over the last ten years, the concept of advent has moved to the forefront of the Christmas celebration in our church. This change is exciting, but I want to learn more so my family can make the most of this special time of year.
A couple of my friends have recently mentioned planning their family advent activities, which has motivated and inspired me to look more closely at the idea of advent and how our family can prepare our hearts to celebrate the birth of our Savior. To start, I checked out pinterest to see what type of advent calendars I could find. Whoa...so MANY ideas! I was excited, but had a difficult time trying to narrow down one to use. So, I talked to my hubby and the older two kids, and I think that over the course of the next three years, we are going to attempt to make an advent calendar each year. Each child will pick their favorite idea, we will try to re-create that idea (to the best of our ability), and then we will alternate which one we use according to birth order. When the first child is married, they will take their favorite to start the tradition in their family, and so on.
I have also looked for specific suggestions related to daily devotions, recipes, activities, etc. we can use as part of this celebration. A FB friend suggested http://www.d365.org/followingthestar/ yesterday. Our church also distributes an advent devotional guide, but we forgot to pick ours up after the service, so we may have to play catch-up later this week. :)
I want to hear from you. How do you celebrate advent? What resources can you suggest to make this an even more meaningful celebration?
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