Welcome!
I am thrilled to be on your phone or computer screen right now! Thanks for taking a look at our Advent and Christmas ideas...If you decide to undertake some of it, we can do it together😊
But first, some blah blah (this is usually the part I scroll past to get to the action portion and if you do that too, it is totally OK)...
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This blog exists solely for the purpose of Advent and Christmas the way our family celebrates it. We decided when our oldest child was 4 years old that if we were going to change the way we did Christmas, we needed modify before he was able to remember anything else...that way, no long faces (hopefully) on December 25.
We wanted to steer away from presents for Christmas Day, but still celebrate lavishly...the goal was make the whole thing so much fun, no one would even think about presents. Then on New Year's Day, we would do the presents thing...New Year, new things, all the Santa movies...nothing connected with the birth of Jesus. So, to be clear, we are not anti-presents. We just give them later. We are also not "simplify Christmas" people. If anything, this may be more involved, especially if you elect to give presents at some point. We just wanted Christmas (and all the December days leading up to it) to be about "waiting for Jesus' birth".
We have been using this Advent/Christmas "plan" since 2000. There have been changes every year. I may not always put those in, but if I do, I will put the year that we did it.
We used to start Advent the day after Thanksgiving, but since the Thanksgiving day date moves every year, we always had different number of days for Advent. For consistency, we eventually decided to start our Advent season every year on December first, which is tomorrow:-).
We wanted to steer away from presents for Christmas Day, but still celebrate lavishly...the goal was make the whole thing so much fun, no one would even think about presents. Then on New Year's Day, we would do the presents thing...New Year, new things, all the Santa movies...nothing connected with the birth of Jesus. So, to be clear, we are not anti-presents. We just give them later. We are also not "simplify Christmas" people. If anything, this may be more involved, especially if you elect to give presents at some point. We just wanted Christmas (and all the December days leading up to it) to be about "waiting for Jesus' birth".
We have been using this Advent/Christmas "plan" since 2000. There have been changes every year. I may not always put those in, but if I do, I will put the year that we did it.
We used to start Advent the day after Thanksgiving, but since the Thanksgiving day date moves every year, we always had different number of days for Advent. For consistency, we eventually decided to start our Advent season every year on December first, which is tomorrow:-).
- The first year we did it, we had the tree ("lights only" to start), the story and ornaments.
- The next year we did all of that and a dessert.
- The next year we tried to make a fully themed dinner for each night.
All three ways were fun!
Many years we did all the days except Wednesday because of evening church commitments. Sometimes we had a school Christmas program and only had time to do the story and dessert. Sometimes we modified and did the Advent at breakfast
(2020) This year because of COVID 19, we are doing every day. So we have added a few stories
Ruth
Gideon
Jonah
Daniel
Do what you can when you can. Change it up day to day. No hard rules here...
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I am going to put the desserts in red in case you only want that.
I am adding some icons for
🍎🍔🍗🍰🍴food suggestions
📗📘📙readings suggestions
🎧🎧🎧audio suggestions
🎄🎄🎄ornament suggestions
It's a process, with tweaking every year.
So this is the prep for tomorrow (and the theme will be Creation).
I usually make the crisped rice cereal globes on the day we eat them, but you could sneak over to the "recipe" and make them today if you wanted to.
- Set up the Christmas tree today with lights
- Figure out some kind of globe or world ornament 🎄🎄🎄
- Think about how you want to present the Scripture readings. 🎧🎧🎧We have really enjoyed the NIV Audio Bible, but also have used Bible storybooks or Veggie Tales/other Bible cartoons. (2020-📗📘📙using The Voice translation for some of the readings...copying and marking sections for those participating to read.)
- Look at the food for the Advent Day 1 meal or dessert. (Speaking of dessert: There is a new one every day. If you can go in with another family or just make half, you may want to do that).
