Advent Firsts

I was born into a very Catholic family, so it amazes me that I don't remember much about Advent.  I had to do a little research on the computer. (Well not that much - I just googled advent for dummies!) I found a very brief article that describes the practices and reasons behind it.  One of the main things this article emphasises is the need for Advent because it slows the season down for us. Unlike Christmas (commercial style) advent is supposed to be slow and reflective.  I love that!


So when I visited one of my favourite sites, Impress Your Kids, I was thrilled to find simple advent activities.  We were 2 weeks behind but no worries we jumped right in.  At Impress Your Kids, they talked about reading the scriptures related to the birth of Jesus.  We got a chance to act some of these out and it was fun.  We also visited a site recommended by Impress Your Kids and made baby Jesus out of a pink sock!  Lots of fun!  Here is how it went:

We started off by reading the Christmas story.  Then we read the verses for week 1 and 2.  Cohen and Kiran already knew the verse for this week because it was John 3:16.  So thankful for Awana at that moment!  We lit the candle and moved on to our dramatic play.

We read about how Mary wasn't married and how special it was that Joseph asked her to Mary him even though she was pregnant.  I'm not sure how much they got from this but they nodded and looked interested.  They had to find Mary and ask her to marry them.  Kiran did the honours!

We made a simple area for the advent candles.  With 2 boys it has to be flameless!

We went on our journey to Bethlehem.  Kiran was good about remembering to bring Mary!

Then we got to the inn and found there was no room.  We landed in the stable.  Cohen loved counting the farm animals.

We went into the stable.  (It never looked so clean.)  There we found baby Jesus!

After we found Jesus we made a baby Jesus doll.  We used this craft from this awesome website that I found through Impress Your Kids.

Baby Jesus was wrapped.

He looks happy don't you think?

We placed Jesus at the dinner table with the advent candles.

The conversations around the dinner table was so rich.  The kids talked about the Christmas story and recited the verses.  They were so taken with the story.  We had a great time.  Thanks again Impress Your Kids!

What do you do to slow down and savour the season?