Advent 3 Ways

I absolutely love the Advent season!  I love the music, lights, decorations, food, all of it. I like the focus on the arrival of our Lord to distract from some of the craziness that comes along with the holiday season.  I think if it were up to me December would be like 45 days long.  I've enjoyed doing some activities with the kids the past few years, but this year we are doing a little bit of everything.

1. Countdown Chain - Alina and I started doing this the year we moved to Colorado (Nate was like 8 months old so he really didn't know what was going on) and she loves it.  We tear off one link each night before bed. This year I added verses to read on the inside of each link (got it from Pinterest, there's a shock, here's the link verses to read in december) that follow the entire Christmas story.  So for December we will be reading those each night.

 2. Target and Truth in the Tinsel - Nina got us this cute countdown at Target when she was here and it works perfectly with Truth in the Tinsel that I decided to try this year.  Once again it goes through the Christmas story through all of December but you also do a craft/ornament each day, like a Jesse tree idea.  Its cute and simple enough that I may hopefully stick with it.  There's a piece of paper that is the clue for the theme for each day in the little pocket.  Each morning we pull out the clue and stick the candy cane in its place.  Then at some point we read the scripture and make the craft.  I probably won't do all 24 crafts, but will try most of them.  I like it because once again, it centers on the coming of the baby Jesus.

3. And of course the chocolate calendar.  Nina always has one of these for each of the grand kids (and Uncle Mark:).  Its the simplest, but possibly the favorite. They may for get about our craft or scripture but they don't forget they are supposed to get chocolate every night after dinner!

I hope you are enjoying the advent season as much as we are!