Advent 2015

I try to make Christmas special.  Since Hudson’s second Christmas (6 month old babies don’t really care about Christmas) I’ve done daily advent activities through the month of December.  Here’s 2013 and 2014.  Last year, I spent a ton of time preparing something for everyday: a gift, a craft, a family activity, etc… but about halfway to Christmas I noticed something I didn’t like.  Hudson started asking where his little gift was for the day.  Some days I forgot to set it out the night before (it happens y’all) and he’d ask for it.  That bothered me because I really don’t like entitlement.  James noticed it as well so we decided last Christmas that this Christmas’ activities would be simpler and other-focused.  So here’s what I’ve come up with.

1.  Daily Bible Reading. We usually use the JesusStorybook Bible for the daily devotions, but we’ve read it so much.  To freshen things up a bit, we’re reading from The Big Picture Bible.  Hudson actually picked this Bible from his collection.  I also downloaded and printed these advent scripture reading cards.  Bonus is that they’ll make a cute banner when pinned up after we’ve read the scripture.

2. Daily Prayer for Friends, Family, and Church Family.  I did this at Easter with the easter eggs and really liked it.  So I made little construction paper ornaments (fancy, haha) and wrote names of our close friends, family, and church families on there.  Daily, Hudson can pick an ornament naming whom we will pray for then he’ll tape it to his paper tree.

3. Still some special stuff.  There will still be some special gifts throughout the month, but nothing extravagant.  He’ll open his Fisher-Price Little People Nativity which he actually remembers from last year.  He’ll get a special ornament for his tree.  We’ll decorate a ginger bread house and go see Christmas lights.  Plus we always do the Christmas Eve box thing since I’m mean and don’t allow any presents to be opened on Christmas Eve.  That’s all I have planned specifically.  We have a ton of Christmas movies and videos so I’m sure we’ll watch through whenever.  And we have a gazillion Christmas books, both secular and religious, that we’ll read just like we read daily anyway.

I'm trying something new - art journalling through advent scriptures. Here's my first one and it's definitely not pinterest-worthy.  But I am enjoying it so far and it is stretching me to think about the scriptures in a way to illustrate them.  Hudson (who hates all things artsy - not enough action) has asked for his own journal to draw in so he'll start tomorrow.  Who knows maybe he'll love it?

Who knows? This may backfire, too and he’ll still act entitled.  But we’re trying to be intentional in not spoiling him too much.  After all, that’s what his Granna and Papaw are for! 

Joy to the world, the Lord has come.

Let earth receive her king!

Let every heart prepare him room.

And heaven and nature sing.