Keeping Christ in Christmas- Advent

Lately, I’ve been reading with great interest how other families are celebrating Christmas. It's always neat to find things to incorporate into our family traditions. Maybe you'll find some of this helpful too. My cousin Kelly had some great ideas on her blog. You can check her out here. Kelly is super creative and always has great ideas that are inexpensive and fun. Another friend, Dana has wonderful Godly insight and ideas on her blog as well. Check her out here.

So I’ve decided to share a few of our family traditions to make sure Christ stays the center of our Christmas celebrations. Each evening we light our advent candles and read from A Family Advent Celebration. The white candles are lit  one each for the four Sundays before Christmas. We re-light the candles each night. The red candle is the Christ candle, which  we will light it on Christmas Eve.  The Book has a daily scripture reading and songs that help keep us focused on the real meaning of Christmas. It recounts how the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Good stuff :)

 We also have this large wall Advent calendar that I got last year at Kaplan’s. I think it was a seasonal item, only sold in their stores. I have been unable to find it online. If your interested in it e-mail me and I'll try to find it. The calendar has neat things under each flap that give a scripture for a child to read or a craft activity. Super cute!

We also have The Story of Christmas Book Set and Advent Calendar and Family Life Adorenaments.  Josiah likes to play with them, Eden loves to hang them on the Christmas tree each day :) Each one has a book or reading that describe the birth and life of Christ. We also hang them as ornaments on our tree. The Adorenaments have some of the characteristics of Jesus' life like, King of Kings, The Good Shepherd, and Savior. Each of the ornaments have the story in scripture where they come from as well as a book to read. Both have been great sources of Truth and fun for Eden. She looks forward to me bringing them out each day.

I'm still searching for the Little People Nativity Set. This is one of those elusive things that I keep searching for, but have yet to find. We have a real Nativity set that I let the kids play with, but I would love to find a non-breakable one.

Our heart's desire is to have our children understand the real meaning of Christmas. The fact that Christ came as a baby, to live a sinless life, so that he might purchase us from an eternity in hell is mind blowing! I know that our children are very young, and we are sensitive to how we engaging them with the Gospel. But we are PURPOSEFUL in giving them the Truth daily.I pray that this is their beginning to a never ending hunger that will lead to a relationship Christ.