The 2009 Advent Traditions Thread

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Gertabelle

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Last year we used a huge bag of jingle bells (100+) to keep track of our prayers and sacrifices to get ready for Jesus’ birthday. We placed jingle bells on pipe cleaners, and when we had five bells, we made a loop and hung them up on a garland on the wall.

In 2007 we had a treasure box of large beads with the “big players” from scripture on each bead. My son would pull one out of the box at dinner time, and then I’d tell him about that person and their part in Jesus’ coming.

Last year for Christmas, his grandma gave him a quilted Advent calendar (one pocket for each day) and I’m looking for a good way to use it this year.

I’m looking for creative and engaging activities that teach bits of the Faith and prepare our hearts and minds for the celebration of Christ’s birth. This is all in addition to the regular readings and prayers and the Advent wreath. Thanks for any ideas you may have!

FYI, I’m a single mom with a delightful 6yo son 😃 His dad (my ex) is not a Catholic. So I am looking for new ways to continue bringing Advent alive for my wee knight for God.

Gertie
(p.s. we also celebrate the 12 days of Christmas – this year with daily treasure hunts :D)
 
We don’t decorate for Christmas until - well - Christmas 😃 We also keep Christmas decor up for the entire Christmas season 👍

Keeping Advent as a time of expectation is important to us.
 
At one school my children went to, they were gathering pieces of straw/hay for Jesus’ bed. Every time someone in the class did something nice for someone or helped at home etc, a piece of straw/hay was placed in the manger. It was nice for the children to see their good works make a soft place for baby Jesus to sleep as Advent lead to Christmas.
 
Irishmom2 said:
At one school my children went to, they were gathering pieces of straw/hay for Jesus’ bed. Every time someone in the class did something nice for someone or helped at home etc, a piece of straw/hay was placed in the manger. It was nice for the children to see their good works make a soft place for baby Jesus to sleep as Advent lead to Christmas.
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This is what we do in my family. Everyone has their own color of construction paper to use as hay, and then when someone does a good deed, they get to put a piece of their hay in the manger to help welcome Baby Jesus. Then, when “Santa” comes on Christmas Eve, he looks to see if Baby Jesus has a nice bed of hay, and then will place a Jesus figurine in the manger and put it in our Nativity Set.
 
*These are such treasures! :bounce: Great thread! kage I have always said…this is the year we are going to wait until Christmas to put up the tree, then dh is like…cooommme ooon, let’s put it up after Thanksgiving. lol Oh well. :o

We use the advent wreath…(note to self, buy new candles this year) and as we light each candle, we pray special advent prayers from a website…www.creightonuniversity.com. I discovered this site a few years ago–their Advent and Lent prayer reflections are wonderful. My kids take turn reading the mass readings, and then we read the reflection together, and we have a prayer basket that we place our prayers in each night. Something interesting happens with kids when you do this–at first, my son would drag his feet to do this. :rolleyes: No kidding, by week two he would be waiting on us to start the prayers, ready to go. When Christmas came last year, my dd went…aaahhh, Advent’s over. :o

It has been a special tradition going now for about 5 years. I like the bells idea, too Gertabelle.

Advent is so special, makes Christmas that much more special, I think.

Do you any of you fast during Advent? I have done that, but just curious if any of you do something like that, similiar to Lent?*
 
Thanks for the great ideas! I love the straw for the manger idea. I think my son would absolutely LOVE this idea – he’s so tender about babies and is really into the idea of Jesus’ birthday.
whatevergirl said:
These are such treasures! :bounce: Great thread! kage I have always said…this is the year we are going to wait until Christmas to put up the tree, then dh is like…cooommme ooon, let’s put it up after Thanksgiving. lol Oh well. :o
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Perhaps you could compromise and put up some other decorations at the beginning of Advent, and keep the tree until closer to Christmas. Maybe as Christmas gets closer you could have gradually more decorations?
We use the advent wreath…(note to self, buy new candles this year) and as we light each candle, we pray special advent prayers from a website…www.creightonuniversity.com. I discovered this site a few years ago–their Advent and Lent prayer reflections are wonderful. My kids take turn reading the mass readings, and then we read the reflection together, and we have a prayer basket that we place our prayers in each night. Something interesting happens with kids when you do this–at first, my son would drag his feet to do this. :rolleyes: No kidding, by week two he would be waiting on us to start the prayers, ready to go. When Christmas came last year, my dd went…aaahhh, Advent’s over. :o
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Thanks for the link! I’ll check this out for this year 👍
Do you any of you fast during Advent? I have done that, but just curious if any of you do something like that, similiar to Lent?
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We did a “light fast” during Advent when I was in the monastery. No organ during the Divine Office, no desserts at meals (except on Dec. 8, of course!). But somehow spending the season making thousands upon thousands of cookies just never allowed the season to seem penitential 🤷

Gertie
 
Gertabelle said:
Thanks for the great ideas! I love the straw for the manger idea. I think my son would absolutely LOVE this idea – he’s so tender about babies and is really into the idea of Jesus’ birthday.

Perhaps you could compromise and put up some other decorations at the beginning of Advent, and keep the tree until closer to Christmas. Maybe as Christmas gets closer you could have gradually more decorations?

Thanks for the link! I’ll check this out for this year 👍

We did a “light fast” during Advent when I was in the monastery. No organ during the Divine Office, no desserts at meals (except on Dec. 8, of course!). But somehow spending the season making thousands upon thousands of cookies just never allowed the season to seem penitential 🤷

Gertie
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I hear ya. Maybe we should cut down on some of the baking, too. 😊
 
Now that we’re only days (ten) away from the beginning of Advent, I thought I’d bump this thread back up and see if anyone had any other ideas to offer.

Gertie
 
Thanks for the bump. I did not see it the first time around.

I love everyone’s ideas. Over on another thread someone suggested the Holy Heroes Advent Adventure for the little ones. All you have to do is sign up through email and they send a daily video and activity idea. I am hoping it is similar to the summer vacation bible school they did in the summer. It was easy and fun. Plus the reminder through email didn’t hurt, either.

My ideas have more to do with not “what” to do, but when and with whom to do it. I have made the mistake in years past to wait until everyone was home to do the Advent activity together and it just doesn’t work. By the time my husband gets home and we eat, there is very little time before the little ones go to bed. I think I might have to do an activity with the little ones right after school and then try to do something different with the big kids in the evening. Your suggestions are very helpful, though, as I suppose we could use one of your ideas to keep track of our prayers and offerings but do it separately - that way there is some cohesiveness in that everyone has “contributed” to the garland or the manger.

By the way - our kids always bring home the manger and the hay from school - love that.
 
I have never “formally” celebrated Advent…but I am thinking that this year I may start the tradition for my husband and I so it will be up and running by the time we have kids 🙂
You all have such great ideas!
 
MercyMia said:
I have never “formally” celebrated Advent…but I am thinking that this year I may start the tradition for my husband and I so it will be up and running by the time we have kids 🙂
You all have such great ideas!
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As a newlywed, this is where my thoughts are too…👍

My husband and I are going to put up our tree and lights but wait on the ornaments until Christmas Eve. In their place, we’re each going to write one thing we’re thankful for every day on a card (in either purple or pink marker, depending on the week) and hang it on the tree with the appropriate color ribbon. Then, on Christmas Eve, we’ll read them all and replace them with the Christmas Ornaments (all the while listening to Christmas music).

I like the idea of the jingle bells. I might have to get some pipecleaner and bells for that one.
 
Our church is providing Advent wreaths and candles for a small charge after Mass this coming Sunday. My daughter is excited for Advent. She remembers us lighting the candles last year…and the correlation to the huge wreath and candles at Mass.
 
i love the idea of the Advent tree that i saw at EWTN done by a lady who puts a card with a picture of the characters of the Bible and each has a story of the Bible.

does anyone here seen and know what i am talking about? i wish i could find it. but i have not been able to do so.

thanks
 
Whatevergirl - where on the sight is the prayers? I looked at it and it just looks like the sight to the University? Having some prayers to go along with the lighting of the candles would be nice.
 
Sorry for the long absence – my little one :knight2: turned SIX this week 😃
mommy2mikeemily said:
Whatevergirl - where on the sight is the prayers? I looked at it and it just looks like the sight to the University? Having some prayers to go along with the lighting of the candles would be nice.
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I couldn’t find the Advent prayers either, but a quick google search helped me find this:
catholicmom.com/advent.htm There are some fantastic ideas here, and I’m looking forward to spending a little time on the site over the next week.

I also found this website that explains how to make your own Jesse Tree:
catholicculture.org/culture/liturgicalyear/activities/view.cfm?id=545
After reading about it, I remembered that our teachers in elementary school did something like this with us. And this is what I was trying to re-create when I did the beads with my son several years ago (see post #1). I’m so psyched to have found this! :extrahappy:

God bless everyone as they plan ways to strengthen their union with Christ this coming Advent.

Gertie
 
Is there any seasonal music that would be considered Advent appropriate?

I was curious about fasting during Advent, as well. I was reading through Scott Hahn’s “Signs for Life” book, and he has a section on Advent. He mentions fasting several times. I have never really heard about that before. This is my first year to try to truly celebrate Advent. I know I won’t get it all right, but I want to at least start learning and gathering information so that each year my husband and I (and children one day) will fully understand the true meaning of Advent…and in the process Christmas.

Blessings,

Jessica
 
There are some appropriate pieces of music. You have a better chance of hearing them at church than on the radio, but I’ve been combing my Christmas CDs looking for the few advent songs and putting them together. O Come, O Come Emmanuel is the best-known, but there are a few of Charles’ Wesley’s hymns that are very appropriate for Advent and got recorded. There are some great older hymns but I can’t find many of them recorded these days.
 
I checked on Amazon. They have a lot of Advent CD’'s although it seems like most of them are German. I’m not really looking for instrumental CD’s, but more like a choir type recordings.
 
JAGCath28 said:
Is there any seasonal music that would be considered Advent appropriate?

I was curious about fasting during Advent, as well. I was reading through Scott Hahn’s “Signs for Life” book, and he has a section on Advent. He mentions fasting several times. I have never really heard about that before. This is my first year to try to truly celebrate Advent. I know I won’t get it all right, but I want to at least start learning and gathering information so that each year my husband and I (and children one day) will fully understand the true meaning of Advent…and in the process Christmas.

Blessings,

Jessica
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I haven’t found an entire CD of Advent music, but honestly, I haven’t been looking for one. If you have a Catholic book/supply store near you, give them a call and see what they have or can find.

“O Come, O Come Emmanuel” is probably the most often recorded, though I always find it on Christmas albums. “People Look East” is another one I’ve seen on Christmas CDs.

Fasting. Yes, fasting can be a part of Advent, though it is not mandatory as it is during Lent. I am hoping to do a few mini-fasts before Christmas. I tried yesterday and had such a blood sugar drop that I could barely think straight while teaching my fourth class. I ate half a candy cane (during class :eek:) and decided to rethink how I’ll handle fasting this season.

God bless you.

Gertie
 
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