Celebrating Advent

I have been wanting to change how we celebrate Christmas for a long time. I frankly dread the holiday because of the pressure I feel in meeting lots of expectations on a deadline. As a committed Christian, it should be one of my favorite days of the year but so far, it's not. I've tried to think of ways to make it a happier time of year for me but I'm definitely not there yet.

However, yesterday I made a little progress in making it a more religious holiday--more about celebrating Christ's birth and less about buying the perfect gifts.

The first thing I did was buy this book:

I have to admit that I have not yet read the book. (Remember this is December and time is at a premium--and I just got it yesterday.) However, at the back of the book, in the Appendix, he has a list of devotionals to do each day in December leading up to Christmas. So we tried it last night after dinner. The suggestion for December 4th was to read Psalm 24:9-10, sing "While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks" and read a short story called "The Cobbler and His Guest" by Anne Boyles.

My children groaned when I suggested doing a devotional. They saw the book and thought I was going to start reading it to them. But we sang the hymn, read the Psalm and I read the story off the internet. It took about 5 minutes and they liked it! So I'm going to keep doing it whenever we have time. Not every night is going to work out with all the various holiday concerts and other activities. But I'm not going to let the perfect get in the way of the good.

The other part of the book I like is that he suggests ways to celebrate Advent. I have wanted to do this for a long time but I didn't really know how since I didn't grow up celebrating the holiday. Last Sunday was the first Sunday of Advent and I was unprepared. I had no Advent wreath and no idea what to talk about. But I grabbed a candle out of the cupboard, we sang a hymn, and then we read our favorite prophecies of Christ from the scriptures. It seemed a little pathetic but it still felt like a good thing to do.

So the second thing I did yesterday was to buy a wreath, a candle holder to go inside it, and candles.

I found them at Hobby Lobby--on sale no less. They had the traditional purple and pink candles (why are those the traditional Advent colors?) but I decided that purple and pink don't say Christmas to me so I went with white.

So this Sunday I'm ready! We'll see how it goes but I'm optimistic that I'm creating a new family tradition that helps our Christmas be more Christ-centered.

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