Advent...Family Traditions

I'll be honest, our family is relatively new to the Advent traditions part of Christmas, but it has so enriched our lives and celebration of this holy-day that I thought I'd share a little about what Advent is, what we do as a family and some links to places to get Advent "supplies".

First, Advent really just means "coming", but in association with Christmas has come to mean the traditions that we carry out as believers to prepare for the coming of the Messiah which we celebrate at Christmas. There are SO many different things you can do, with your family or by yourself, to prepare with anticipation for Christmas and the 1st coming of Christ, so I will simply share with you what we do in our family.

Each night after dinner we sit down (all in one chair for now since we are only 3, but hopefully we will need a couch for next year (; ) and we begin with our Advent Wreath.

Advent Wreaths come in all shapes and sizes, some are actually greenery, some are metal, some spell out a word, some are a simple circle. What they all have in common is that they hold four taper candles with one pillar candle standing in the middle. You light a new candle each Sunday beginning four Sundays before Christmas and the pillar in the middle, called the Christ Candle, on Christmas day. Ours, which we just got this year, is a Jesse Tree Advent Wreath. The Jesse Tree is a Biblical tracing of the story of the Messiah starting in Genesis. It actually refers to Jesse's, the Father of David, family tree, which is the family tree of Jesus.

This is the Bible reading we do each night. There is Scripture for each night of Advent leading up to Jesus birth. It is wonderful to watch the story of our Redeemer unfold throughout the entire story of Scripture. So we begin with the lighting of the candle, or candles, and read from the Word for that evening.

After our Jesse Tree reading, we read our Advent story book, this year we are using a WONDERFUL book recommended to us by dear friends. It is called "Jotham's Journey". It tells the story of a young Isaelite boy, Jotham, and his travels as he learns about the Messiah who is about to come. The story is broken up into nightly readings for the season. (I believe it is also a trilogy...)

Finally, we finish with "The Advent Book". This book is probably the most beautiful book I've ever seen. Each page is a door with a small portion of the Christmas story, from The Gospel of Luke, behind the door. You open a new door each night until Christmas day. The cool part is that by the time you get to the last door you've read the Christmas story 25 times!

After the Advent Book we finish our time together with prayer and, sometimes, a song.

So that's what WE do. What do YOU do?

Feel free to post a comment and share your Advent traditions.

If you need some additional ideas, I would HIGHLY recommend celebrationsandtraditions.com/. This is the website of the couple who wrote The Advent Book and they have some truly fabulous ideas. I would also HIGHLY recommend aholyexperience.com. This is one of my favorite blogs and is written by Ann Voskamp. She always blogs about their family Advent time and even has written her own Jesse Tree book titled "The Glorious Coming" which is wonderful. My husband and I have used it before.

So go, prepare, anticipate, and share the Good News: He has come and He is coming again!