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The church season of Advent begins this Sunday. "Advent" -- the time of coming -- the season where the Christian community looks in happy expectation to the arrival of the Christ Child. There are many ways that families can incorporate elements of Advent as ways to help teach children the story of Christmas that is not told in the holiday TV ads and department stores. Advent is a lovely and meaning-filled way to balance the family of faith during a season often colored by excess.
Christa is in Hong Kong, and as the weather gets a bit cooler there, she is really missing home, and how her father would start off every Advent by bringing evergreens into the house. She talks about the inequities she sees around her and concludes in part by saying: There is reason to look forward to celebrating the birth of Jesus, as if for the first time. There are reasons to look round for ways in which we can help make the world a more fair place.
Here are some of the Advent elements you may wish to consider adding to your family's time together:
Giving in honor of Advent
Explaining Advent to your children, and selecting charities together that you will support in the coming year is a fine balance to commercialism. A friend of mine, a single mom, used to save up "appeal letters" and advertisements. After setting up the holiday tree, she would sit down with her kids, and they would decide together which charities they could support, given their income. They'd hang those letters or ads on their tree.
How are you incorporating charitable giving?
The Advent Calendar
This is (most often) a one page wall-hanging that has little "flaps" to open each day in December before Christmas. Some are paper with pictures of verses behind the door. Some, like this fair trade version offered by Divine Chocolate have little chocolates behind each flap and the nativity story on the back.
Others are made of cloth for use year after year, or of wood, like little boxes in calendar shape.
Monica didn't like the store-bought ones, so she built a spectacularly simple and effective secular (but adaptable any way you wish) Advent calendar that is a free-standing 3-D assembly - very clever - and her kids love it!
An Online Advent Calendar -- every day reveals a Christmas tradition from somewhere around the globe.
The Advent Wreath
The Advent wreath sits flat on a tabletop like this:
There are (most often) 5 candles, 4 of which are at the outside edge, and the final one at the middle. One candle is lit every Sunday in Advent, until all four are lit. The center one is lit on Christmas Day. There are various traditions around these candles, one being that three are purple or royal blue (to symbolize the royalty of Christ) and one is pink (to symbolize our joy) and the center one is white (for purity). The outer candles are also thought to symbolize faith, hope, joy and love.
Wreaths were also used in pagan cultures that predate Christianity. During long Scandinavian winters, candles were lit around a wheel. The god of light was asked to turn “the wheel of the earth” back toward the sun to bring warmth and longer days back.
Sandra a stay at home Mom, gives a fine description, pictures included, of how she made her family's Advent wreath from things around the house. She also talks about the meaning of the wreath and how she plans to incorporate it into her family's time.
Paula talks about how to build a wreath for Advent on a budget, and gives a fun idea about how to involve the children.
Michelle provides several crafty ideas about DIY Advent calendars.
The Nativity Scene
This is my favorite. When I was a kid, my parents gave me my own plastic nativity set. Impossible to break. I could set it up in my own room. The three kings were placed w-a-a-a-y on the far end of the room, and every day of Advent I could move them a little bit closer to the manger (until their "official" arrival date on Epiphany, January 6th.) I would even have the shepherds somewhat far away, walking across the hills and
