Advent Ideas

Believe it or not, I did actually get some good responses and ideas after my last post...it's just that most of them came in the form of emails and conversations (not in the comments section of the blog).

I love what one of my friends does: Starting on Boxing Day her son is given a clue at breakfast each morning to find the wise men as they make their way to the nativity scene.  They are hiding somewhere in the house, and often happen to have a gold (chocolate) coin with them.  On Epiphany they arrive at the nativity scene and the family celebrates by giving their Christmas gifts to each other.

As Jon and I have discussed our ideas, here is what we've come up with so far...
I think we're going to do our stockings on St. Nicholas' Day.  Because we will often be traveling and in someone else's home for Christmas, this is one thing that we can do in our own space, with just our own little family.

I also came across the idea of giving three gifts, like the Magi did.  This year we'll do something to wear (p.j.s on Christmas Eve), something to read, and something to play with.  I think this will help us keep the gift buying/giving under control and allow us to be reminded that Christmas isn't about the material stuff we get.

We talked about also trying to give something that we've created that expresses our love for the other person...perhaps a poem or a song or a piece of art.  We haven't given this the complete thumbs up yet, but I think it would be neat for our girls over the years to experience something like this.

I made an Advent calendar (pictures below).  Clipped to each clothes pin is an activity for us to do that day.  Some are simple crafts (make a paper snowflake), some are experiences (go to Candy Cane Lane to look at the Christmas lights), some are opportunities for us to love our neighbors (pick out a gift from the World Vision Catalogue, take cookies to someone in the neighborhood), and some help us tell the Story of Christmas to the girls (set up the Nativity Scene, go outside and look at the stars and talk about the Wise Men).  I expect the activities will change as the girls get older.

We're also doing devotions together each night.  We're using the Regent College Advent Reader.  Laurel isn't quite ready to sit through a reading like that yet, so I think we might do it after the girls are in bed.  But we'll hopefully find other ways to tell the Story to her in the coming weeks.

To be honest, the real reason I wanted to write this post was to show you this:

Christmas Traditions

I love the season of Advent. I love that we have space to prepare to celebrate Jesus' birth.  I love the quiet space in worship, the candles, the familiar scripture passages that proclaim that in the darkness a light will shine, out of a stump, a shoot will grow.  And I love the cookies and the music and the decorations.

But somehow, Advent seems to get away from me every year.  One minute I'm handing out Halloween candy and the next I'm realizing that it's too late to decorate for Christmas because Christmas is only two days away.  What is meant to be a season of waiting quickly becomes a season of rushing.

I want my girls to grow up with a sense of the rhythm that Advent offers, a sense of waiting, hoping, anticipating.  A sense of light glowing brighter, even as our days grow darker.  A sense of turning our attention away from ourselves and towards God and others.

I've been trying to figure out how to cultivate those things in our family; how to create some family Advent traditions that will slow us down and shift our focus.

I've seen some great Advent calendars to make where each day the kids pull out a card that has an activity for that day written on it.  Most of the activity ideas I've seen are the opposite of where I'd like to go, though.  I am on a mission in the next few weeks to try to come up with a list of activities that will be both fun and meaningful, outward focused and age appropriate.  If you have ideas, please send them my way.

I'd also love to hear your ideas for other family traditions during Advent.  Do you have an Advent wreath and light candles? Do you drive around and look at Christmas lights?   Do you have ways of teaching your kids about generosity rather than consumerism?

The other conundrum I'm facing is the whole Santa/St. Nick thing.  Jon grew up in a family that didn't really do Santa Claus.  I grew up in one that did.  We've talked about the values and drawbacks of both approaches.  Some of you are probably thinking, "How could you ever be so cruel as to consider NOT doing Santa?"  And others might be thinking, "Of course you shouldn't do Santa--it misses the whole point of Christmas."  To both of those responses, I would say: "Yes.  I know."  I don't want to go into all of the reasons on either side of the issue--they all have validity.  (Perhaps one of the biggest for us is wondering if we're comfortable creating a false reality for our kids.)  The real question I have is: how do we create meaningful and fun Christmas traditions for our family that keep our focus on the true meaning of Christmas?  What have you done in your family that you have loved?

And if we don't do Santa, how do we help our kids not ruin it for others (like their classmates or their cousins)?

I welcome your ideas (but not your judgments on whether or not Santa is good or bad).

Halloween Hooplas

This year was Laurel’s first real experience of Halloween, complete with costume, a glow in the dark jack-o-lantern bucket, pumpkin carving, and trick-or-treating.  Her adventure began on Saturday when our neighborhood hosted a tots Halloween party.  I had finally borrowed a costume for her two days earlier, so we were ready.  She made a very cute little bumblebee.  As often happens in our lives these days, though, we showed up for the party about 30 minutes before it ended.  Most everything was winding down and being cleaned up.  I don’t think Laurel noticed.  She didn’t really want to go inside to begin with.  I convinced her to go in, but she didn’t want to make any crafts or stick her hand into any gooey bowls.  She was content to eat a cracker, drink her juice, and watch the little dancing Frankenstein. 

We explained trick-or-treating to her, and her eyes grew wide when we told her that people would give her candy.  You must understand the context.  We don’t give Laurel juice except on special occasions, much less candy.  On the morning of Halloween, I said, “Today is Halloween!  Tonight you get to wear your bumblebee costume again and go knock on people’s doors.  And do you remember what they are going to give you?”

Her eyes again grew wide, and a huge smile of anticipation spread across her face as she exclaimed, “JUICE!” 

I laughed and said, “Well, you might not get juice, but you will get candy!”

“And juice?”

Our household had been busy in the days leading up to Halloween, so it turned out that at 4:00 on Monday afternoon, we still hadn’t carved our pumpkins.  Of course the thought occurred to me that Laurel is two and probably won’t remember if we skipped the whole thing.  But I felt like it was one of those things we should do.  So, we started into the project.  Jon and I quickly realized that this was one of those things we were doing more for us than for her when we kept asking her to stand back so she wouldn’t get hurt and then she eventually wandered off to play, while we tried to finish our carving in time to get supper on the table.  Eventually I called things to a halt so that I could feed Brynna and make supper.

By the time we left for trick-or-treating, we had a pumpkin mess on the kitchen floor, but no jack-o-lanterns on the porch.

(are you still reading this story?)

So…off we go to trick-or-treat.  Here are our two favorite moments from the night:

At one house the woman put a little bag of M&Ms in Laurel’s bucket.  As we were walking away, Laurel stared at those M&Ms and proclaimed (in a very loud voice), “M&Ms…POOP IN THE POTTY!”

A little while later she said she wanted to eat her candy.  We explained that we would wait until we got home.  She then exclaimed that when we got home, she wanted “Two M&Ms.  NO, 5 M&Ms!”  It will probably be the only time in her life that she will think we’re giving her a big treat by letting her eat 5 M&Ms from her Halloween candy stash.