Well it won't be long till Christmas now!!! I know some of you maybe tutting as its not even December but advent starts in November (4 Sundays before Christmas) so this is when we start our preparations.
I love all things Christmassy - i love the decorations, the food, buying gifts, doing the cards, the carols, the plays, the social events... not so keen on wrapping but I have a husband who enjoys that. I started present shopping ages ago. This is because I enjoy being organised, I enjoy getting bargains and I would rather spend December concentrating on Jesus.
This year we have decided the best way to communicate the truth of Christmas is by having a special family advent time together, each Sunday of advent. The run upto Christmas is usually really busy and Jons workload seems to increase. Sundays are the best day for our whole family to be together and its important that this is not something that I just do with the children but for us all to be included. We want to prepare our childrens hearts for the true meaning of Christmas and why this is an exciting time for us. We do different things each year (some years are busier than others).
The plan - The first Sunday is Hope. We are going to have a nice breakfast together, light our first advent candle. We are planning on reading a passage from the bible about hope, how Jesus is light of the world, to discuss the symbolism in why we do what we do and then an activity. As our children range from 1-8 we will probably have a colour in activity sheet based on what we're discussing.
This year instead of the chocolate advent calendars, we have a build the nativity scene calendar. We will do this each morning and allow them to choose a sweetie from the Heroes tin ( i think the chocolates in the tin taste nicer than the advent ones).
We hope to build happy lasting memories over advent with our children...
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