Celebrating Advent
Advent season is here!
Without a doubt, it's our favorite time of year. The anticipation of Christmas fills each December day with a festive hopefulness unparalleled by other holidays. There's a magic to each morning as we prepare our home and hearts for the celebration of Christ's arrival, and the excitement around the holidays feels palpable and contagious.
The Christmas season has been at least twice as fun with kids as it was before they joined our family. Our annual traditions are growing each year, solidifying a steady rhythm of memories and predictable patterns that our children will grow to look forward to, enjoy, and cherish for their childhoods and beyond.
It feels like such a privilege to guide little ones through this treasured season. What a joyful advent story we get to share! What reasons to celebrate! We deck the halls with joy, we eat and drink and are merry, and we swap gifts and moments of togetherness in an effort to bless one another with generosity, thoughtfulness, and love. There are so many ways to celebrate the season - a full scale ranging from silly to serious, wise to whimsical, merry to mystical. We adore Christmas time for so many reasons, but we lament the temptation to elevate cultural traditions above the real roots and reasons for the season. At the heart of our celebrations is a longing and love for the "Son of God, love's pure light."
To help keep Christ at the center of our celebrations, we incorporated a Scripture-infused Advent calendar tradition into our family's December rituals. Each evening, we pull an advent card from our calendar and read a short verse that tells a small part of the larger Christmas story. We selected 25 vital verses and designed them in a timeless, classic layout that can be printed off and used in conjunction with your favorite advent calendar at home. The beauty of these verses is that you can keep your evening ritual as simple or complex as you wish - we light a candle, do a short reading, and spoil the kids with a few red and green chocolate candies and call it a night. As they grow, I know we'll spend more time discussing the verses, the context, and how it affects our lives - but for now we're happy to be solidifying a simple tradition that keeps our holiday season merry and meaningful.
We'd love to spread the love and share our Advent calendar with you! You can download the PDFs here and print and trim at home or take to a local print shop and print on card stock, which may hold up for years of celebrations! Each scripture card is numbered and corresponds with the first 25 days of December, ending with Matthew 2:11, when the Magi worshipped Jesus and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. We ended our Advent study on that note with hopes that your Christmas Day may be filled with meaningful gift-giving and worship of "Jesus, Lord At Thy Birth."
Merry, merry Christmas - from our family to yours! We wish you a warm and loving holiday season, celebrating Christ and holding each other close for the most fun and festive time of year.
"Silent night, holy night!
Son of God, love's pure light
Radiant beams from Thy holy face
With dawn of redeeming grace
Jesus Lord, at Thy birth
Jesus Lord, at Thy birth"