Last month I shared our Thanksgiving family traditions, so let’s take a look at our Advent family traditions. Advent occurs during the four weeks, prior to Christmas. It is a time of “anticipation” for the “arrival” of Christ’s birth (Christmas).
In future posts, I’ll share our Christmas family traditions. I’ve linked some of these ideas to previous blog posts for more information.
6 Advent Family Traditions
Read Advent & Christmas Books
Our favorite Christmas books to read aloud include Jotham’s Journey. We read the other two books in the trilogy, but didn’t like the political correctness or the forced message in them. We LOVED Jotham’s Journey. Perfect to read each night of advent.Other books we enjoyed reading at Advent include: The Best Christmas Pageant Ever
One Wintry Night (especially younger ages) The Grinch Who Stole Christmas (great message to young kids).
Advent Calendars
My mom made me a fabric, wall-size advent calendar that I still use. It’s fun to move the bear around the house. You can also add your own advent ideas on each day by pinning an activity on the daily comment.
We’ve had several advent calendars over the years that my kids have enjoyed..
Advent Bible Readings
At our breakfast devotions, we read Scripture specific to advent. If you are looking for an Advent Reading schedule, we include one in our Christmas Celebrations..
Advent Wreath
We “tried” to remember and light the candles in the wreath on the appropriate days. As we read Jotham’s Journey at night, I tried to light the right advent wreath candles. I wished we had spent more time talking about the meaning of each candle in the Advent wreath.
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St. Nicholas Day
I don’t really remember celebrating St. Nick’s Day, but my kids remember putting their shoes out for St. Nicholas to fill with treats. You can read more about St. Nicholas (especially if you are Protestant) … right here: St. Nicholas Day Activities or Christmas in Germany activities for kids
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St. Lucia’s Day
My middle daughter loved St. Lucia, after reading Kristen’s Christmas. I made her St. Lucia dress and she served St. Lucia Rolls to her siblings for several years.
On a final note, one of the best pieces of advice I received the first year I homeschooled was to take a break during December. A friend of mine who had kids the same ages, but had homeschooled since Kindergarten, told me she “quits” formal homeschooling.
What you might say? Quit homeschooling for a month.
Well, not really!
From this piece of advice, our family began a Christmas tradition of integrating Christmas and Advent into our homeschooling.
I mention a few ideas on our 3 Clues to Keep Christ in Christmas online workshop. These include:
- Reading books with an Advent or Christmas theme (Language Arts)
- Learning Christmas math through baking (Math & Science)
- Selling baked goods to earn money for missionary gifts (Math & Business)
- Studying the history of special Advent days from history (History)
Integrate Christmas into your homeschool…to encourage a love of learning during the holidays, I’m offering for a limited time, my Christmas Unit Study. You’ll get practical and easy ideas in Christmas Writing, Christmas Math, Reading, History, Science Experiments and much more.
If you would like our complete list of activities you can do during Advent & Christmas, enter your name & email below. I’d be happy to send our Christmas Unit Study to you at no cost to you. This offer expires at the end of December. After that, it will be $9.97.
If you’re looking for other holiday family traditions, here are some of our family’s traditions.
Thanksgiving Family Traditions
Advent Family Traditions
Family Christmas Traditions
Epiphany Family Traditions
Question: How do you celebrate Advent? You can leave a comment by clicking here.
