Advent Traditions

My sister-in-law asked me what we do for Advent traditions. I'm sure she didn't realize how much I would have to say on the subject, so I thought it would make a great blog post. I mean, I'm doing all this work, shouldn't more people have to read about it benefit from it?

Since Advent usually starts the Sunday after Thanksgiving, we're rarely ready for it! It didn't take too many years of homeschooling for me to realize that we should always have a full week of school vacation for Thanksgiving. After all, it's practically impossible to school, clean house, and cook, or even travel, at the same time. Take a week off. You'll thank me for it. Then you have some hope of being ready for Advent!

Advent wreath on the dining table. Here are some directions. Another variation is to put a "Christ" candle in the center. It can be covered w/ a blue cloth to represent Mary, or just kept unlit until Christmas. I'm all about the mystery and symbolic little gestures! I like to use a red sparkly pillar candle that I put in the center on Christmas. Sometimes I replace the purple and pink candles with red or white.

I like to take it a step further and put an Advent wreath on my front door, adding a new bow every Sunday. I put up the regular wreath on Christmas Eve (or replace the bows).

Advent Calendars
Another little tradition that I enjoyed when the kids were younger is a homemade countdown chain. The first one I ever made was Christmas tree shapes cut out and hung over red yarn on the mantle. Each tree had a date and inside was an activity for us to do that day.

Back then, we used to go to the mall nearly every day to buy one present. Yes. One. I was crazy. But it was fun, short and manageable and no one ever had a breakdown. Of course, now they can't ever stand to stay home more than one day because I trained them to get out of the house every day!!! But, I digress.

The activities were not just crafts for me to do with the kids. They were my actual to-do list to get ready for Christmas. Bake cookies for cookie exchange. Cookie exchange. Wrap presents for grandparents. Mail presents to grandparents. Go to the mall to see Santa. The children didn't really care that it was a practical list---it was fun to see what the plans were for the day and fun to help Mom get ready for Christmas.

Since we switched to Catholicism and celebrating Advent, the trees hung over the yarn morphed into a purple and pink Advent chain. Much more liturgically correct. Much more of a pain if you're using your to-do list! You see, it's hard to have your whole 4 weeks of Advent planned out that well during the week of Thanksgiving. With the stapled links on a chain you don't have the luxury of filling in the next few days when you're ready! So, now our chain has prayers on it. I think. This year, Little Princess made the chain during her co-op class (God bless those teachers!) and I have no idea what is inside it.

We also have a felt advent calendar with all the little pockets that the kids enjoy because it has a Nativity theme and they like taking the little people, animals, and stars out.

Let me just point out that having an Advent chain, Advent calendar, and the to-do list chain is NOT TOO MUCH STUFF. It's essential when you have lots of little hands that want to take their turn for the day! The fighting every day nearly wore me out and made me long for Christmas more than anything.


Jesse Tree
I love the Jesse Tree. It is my most favorite-est tradition of all of them. There are lots of ways to do this and lots of resources on the web. It can be a small, tabletop tree or something more elaborate. We've done it several ways over the years.

The first year, when my 4 children were 7 and under, we made the ornaments out of salt dough, painted them with food colors, and sealed them with mod podge. A few have broken over the years and been re-done, either with sculpey or bread dough. These are adorable. That year, we put up our full-sized tree and just put the Jesse Tree ornaments on it until Christmas eve when we finished decorating it. I thought it was very special having those ornaments that represent the history of salvation on the tree. Loved it.

Later I purchased a small, 5 foot, artificial tree which serves as the Jesse tree now. It's decorated with the same bread-dough ornaments and pink and purple ribbons. 3 purple, 1 pink. Naturally.


We're usually too busy to put up the big tree on Christmas Eve, so we put it up on the "Pink Sunday"---Gaudete Sunday, which reminds us that the joy of Christmas is coming! We're flexible on the decorating, too, since I'm all about keeping it joyful and non-stressful as possible.

We have 2 (!) sets of ornaments from Illuminated Ink. They're simple to color and cut, but there aren't as many as I would like. Lots more neat stuff available from Illuminated Ink! If I were making another set, I'd be tempted to make them out of felt. Simple would be cut and glued, perfect for little helpers. More elaborate would be sewn together and stuffed!

We use Advent and Christmas for the Christian Family by Teresa Zepeda and Laurie Gill for our Jesse Tree readings and other traditions. Our book has long readings, which we use more now that the kids are older, and short versions of the story so they get the basics when they're little. And sometimes, we alternate depending on how busy everyone is. By now, they know the stories very well. We do one reading (or 2 if we missed a day!) every evening after dinner and we take turns hanging the ornaments. Here is another great resource.

If I were making my ornaments out of felt---which I'm sort of thinking of doing now!---I'd use them as school lessons. Tell the kids the story in detail as we sit at the table crafting the day's ornament and discussing. Sounds idyllic, doesn't it? The reality is, and was, very different, but the kids still love stuff like that!

Feast of St. Nicholas
We celebrate this on December 6.

The stockings are hung by the chimney with care, in hopes that St. Nicholas will soon be there!

We try to make special cookies in advance or have beignets for breakfast.
O Night Divine looks like great resource for celebrating Advent! This is really hard to celebrate now since the school kids leave at 6:45 a.m.!

So, to get ready for the beginning of Advent, this is what we do:

• Advent wreath(s)
• Nativity sets (leave Jesus out of the manger and the Wise Men far to the East!)
• Christmas Stockings
• Any other St. Nicholas statues

All the other stuff and decorations come out slowly. To me, Advent is a long season of preparation both spiritual and physical. Taking the time to do all these things over the whole month makes it both less stressful and emphasizes that Christmas starts December 25. Figure out how much you can handle on one day---like decorating the banister, or the bushes out front---and put it on your Advent chain.

Did I mention that I love, love, love the fact that Christmas is more than one day? We keep everything out until Epiphany. Only then do we start dismantling. Usually, the neighborhood requires that outdoor lights be put away around that time. That's all we do. The rest is done as I feel like it. I figure I'm good until Candlemas. Then the tree comes down. Sigh.


Have a beautiful, blessed Advent, ya'll!