Advent

I love Christmas, I start putting the decorations and lights up as soon as my husband will get them up from the basement, which is usually the day after Thanksgiving. Some of my friends think I'm a little bit (okay a lot) off my rocker, but I get as excited as child as Christmas approaches. What I don't love at christmas is the “ I wants”. You know, “Mom, I want this new toy that just came out “ or “Mom, I need to write my 200 page list to Santa telling him what I want.” As parents we have to put extra effort in to combat the commercialism and materialism that abounds at christmas. We need to make sure that our children throughly understand that “Jesus is the reason for the season”.

Make (or buy but making is more fun) an advent wreath. This can be a fun way to start the season. The word “Advent” as defined by Webster means “arrival”. By observing advent the four sundays before Christmas we are looking forward to the arrival of Jesus' birth.

One fun activity for the first advent Sunday is to make a prayer chain for the number of days until Christmas and write a name or a character trait we pray for each day until Christmas.

See also: parenting