Family Advent and Christmas traditions

[HD0521]

I’m a recent convert from Protestantism. Since this is my first Advent and Christmas, I am looking for ideas for Advent and Christmas traditions I can incorporate into my family. (I never much cared for the “gorge ourselves on turkey then fight over TVs at midnight in Walmart” to start the Christmas season haha) It’s me and my wife and our two small children.

 

[Xanthippe_Voorhees]

I’m a recent convert from Protestantism. Since this is my first Advent and Christmas, I am looking for ideas for Advent and Christmas traditions I can incorporate into my family. (I never much cared for the “gorge ourselves on turkey then fight over TVs at midnight in Walmart” to start the Christmas season haha) It’s me and my wife and our two small children.

We spread out the holidays

December 6th -Feast of St. Nicholas- Chocolate coins in shoes and perhaps a new sweater or other piece of needed warm clothing.

December 13th- Feast of St. Lucia- Special breakfast buns (we do orange flavor rather than saffron to save on expense)…I will post my recipe if interested

December 24- Mass with new clothes, “fun” dinner of pigs in blankets, chicken nuggets and basically all the oven-ready junk food one can fathom and new jammies for bed. (ok, over the years this has been skimped on–sometimes they are just mended/dyed )

December 25- Stocking and SMALL & HOMEMADE gifts from mom/dad/sibilings and then also gifts relatives who mailed presents. Breakfast is somewhat negated by sweets. Dinner is a big lunch everyone likes (my parents do lasagna, but little one can’t do cheese so we do other fam favorites). Supper is leftovers.

January 6th- (or the Saturday closest) Feast of the Magi- there are 3 gifts under the tree for each child–and sometimes mommy and daddy. A wanted item (ie toy), a food item, and a book.
“Gold”-a much wanted pricy item, “Frankincense” a much wanted savory/sweet item for that child alone (box of favorite cereal seems to work around here) and “Murrh”–a medicine/knowledge which we interpreted as a book

In addition to this, we read more scripture, light advent candles. Mary and Joseph journey to the manger from Dec 6 and arrive on Dec 24th. (on Sundays they are always in the advent wreath, they also take a brief intermission on the 13th due to St. Lucia). During this time, shepherds also appear in the house, and a few animals go in the creche starting the week before Christmas. The children gather all the sheep and shepherds and add them to the Creche on Christmas. Then the wise men appear on the 26th of December at various points around the house and the children can go find where they are when they wake. Christmas to Feast of the Magi they can play with the Creche.

We also put dual strands of lights on our tree. During Avent, we have only the white lights. On Christmas we plug in both the white and colored. During Christmas season, we light only the colored and then on Jan 6th all the lights are lit for a final time.

Now, this sounds expensive, but in reality, it’s much more affordable than a typical, secular Christmas. Really, the only thing we are purchasing is the “Gold” toy, a few nicer foods, and some clothing here and there.

Christmas is “put away” the Sunday after the 6th of January.

 

[JetteZ]

Those are some beautiful traditions!

We spend Black Friday (assuming we are home and not traveling) not shopping but decorating the house for Chistmas. We have a nativity outside (it’s a white all wood silhouette) and then two gold angels. That and two wreaths are all we do.

We put up a tree and spend a lot of time looking at the ornaments - when I was little it was a tradition that one of my presents was a new ornaments and we’ve continued that with our children. My mom also saved many of the ornaments I made and we’ve saved the ones the kids made so our tree is filled with memories of past Christmases.

Then we breakout the inside nativities. There is a playschool one for DD2, a playmobile one for DS8, and then the fragile one whose porcelain baby Jesus will be put in after Christmas Eve Mass. DS8 likes to add extra characters to his - there are definitely dragons and dinosaurs in his version

We do Santa/St. Nicholas but this year DS8 will graduate to being a Santa. He knows about St. Nicholas and we’ll talk about how giving in secret is a blessing and that he’s matured so much this year that we think he’s ready to be brought into the Santa club. We’ll encourage him to pick someone to secretly bless. We’ll also make sure he knows he’ll still receive gifts, too.

I do 10 presents and fill a stocking for each child. Some of the presents are things like wrapped Fruit Loops (or other foods we typically don’t allow but somehow the kids have found out about, lol). It’s a lot but it’s pretty much the one time a year they get toys so we save all year to allow ourselves a time to spoil.

We try to do an Angel Tree family that has kids our own age and have DS help pick out presents.

I always do the Christmas party for his class. We find a book that encourages giving and do activities around whatever animal we donate, in his classes name, to Heiffer International.

 

[starlady]

In my family growing up, we always lit the Advent wreath, adding a new candle each year. My parents have a beautiful Advent wreath with scenes from the Nativity that is in four different pieces, so each week a new piece gets added with a candle. We also opened Advent calendars that had different Bible verses and images, and read a small excerpt from either A Christmas Carol or the Nativity story (depending on the year…we alternated each year).

Sometime after Thanksgiving, we would put the Christmas tree up together, as well as other Christmas lights and decorations. I always helped my dad put the lights on the house outside. My dad loved Christmas lights (although he doesn’t put up as many anymore), and I do too. I always remember thinking the house was magically transformed into a warm and cozy atmosphere. Decorations stayed up until the Epiphany.

My parents always left a dish of candy in the doorway for December 6th, the feast of St. Nicholas.

On Christmas Eve, we would go to the evening Mass and then go home to share in some delicious food and drink. My parents always invited the priest over (and he always came!) to eat with us and my brothers and I would open our gifts to each other.

On Christmas day, we opened gifts from parents and they opened gifts from each other and from us. Then later in the day, we always used to go to my maternal grandparents’ house, where other aunts, uncles and cousins would gather and we would have a big meal. We don’t do that so much anymore (gets harder as the kids get older and start their own families).

Every year, the whole family would gather and discuss a gift to Jesus, which would be a gift to one or two charities. My dad would take out all the mailings they had received in the past weeks asking for donations and we would all decide together which charity to support. My parents made a donation, and then we were welcome to add whatever we wanted to that as well from our own personal savings.

While we don’t all live at home anymore, I remember Christmas very fondly and hope to continue many of those same traditions with my husband as our family grows. My husband is originally from Mexico, and so we also try to participate in a Posada (which is a reenactment of Mary and Joseph’s journey to find a place to stay in Bethlehem and takes place each night from Dec. 16th - Dec. 24th) and the Epiphany, which is very big in Hispanic culture as well.

 

[starlady]

We put up a tree and spend a lot of time looking at the ornaments - when I was little it was a tradition that one of my presents was a new ornaments and we’ve continued that with our children. My mom also saved many of the ornaments I made and we’ve saved the ones the kids made so our tree is filled with memories of past Christmases.

This was always one of my favorite things to do with my family. My parents always got a new Hallmark ornament every year for the family tree, and my brothers and I always wanted to be the one to hang the new ornament. Now I am married and out of the house, but I do also have my own tree that I put up with my husband and we pick out a new ornament each year too for our tree.

 

[pianistclare]

I highly recommend praying the O Antiphons and making a Jesse tree with your children.
There’s loads of good Advent-themed music out there for chilly nights and reading before a cozy fire. With small children, you can really impress them with a very “waiting for the Baby Jesus” line of discussion.

 

[HD0521]

Thank you all for the suggestions and ideas! I’m looking forward to putting some of them in practice.