Today is the official start of Advent, which we love to celebrate in our home. Now, I have already written a post about whether or not you should observe the liturgical calendar (Advent, Lent, etc.), and I also recently discussed it again in my sermon on Leviticus 23. You can read both of those to hear my thoughts if you have not decided whether you and your family will celebrate Advent or not.

We do celebrate Advent because we find it to be a fun and beneficial season with our children. If, then, you also celebrate Advent (or perhaps you are just curious), these are our rhythms and traditions. Of course, things have changed throughout the years and will continue to change as our girls get older. But this is the essence of what we are doing. If you find any of these ideas beneficial, feel free to incorporate them into your home. Also, if you have any other ideas or traditions that you would like to share, post them in the comments. I would love to hear them.

DAILY READINGS

We always do devotional readings for Advent. This year we will be using The Kingdom of God Bible Storybook. They have an Advent reading plan with some Advent activities to do. Each night, we will read. Now that our eldest daughter is able to read, I have given her the reading responsibility this year, which is super excited to do. We will also practice each day memorizing a verse of the week, and we will sing a song. Last year’s song was Come Thou Long Expected Jesus, and we will focus on Once in Royal David’s City this year.

On Sundays, we do the same, but we will also light our Advent candles, and the girls will do one of their Advent activities.

CHOCOLATES

We also use chocolates for Advent. Every night, as we do our reading, we will take a chocolate (typically one bite-size piece) and cut it into a small piece for each of us. It isn’t much, barely a bite. But it is a little dose of sweetness to the evening.

We do something similar on Sundays. After church and after lunch, we like to eat ice cream, cake, or some other sweet together as we talk about the sermon. Since we keep sweets very limited the rest of the time, it becomes a favorite part of the week for our kids.

And that is the ultimate idea. We want them to quite literally have a sweet memory of family devotions and sermon discussions.

CHRISTMAS DAY

When we come to Christmas itself, we celebrate with extended families outside the 25th because we want that day to be at home together as a family, resting and focusing upon the Lord.

A tradition that we have now practiced for many years is that we make ‘hogs in a duvet.’ This originated from the first Christmas that Tiff and I were married. We were snowed into our home and made pigs in a blanket. Years later, we decided to do something similar with the girls, but we used Polish sausages and my homemade einkorn pastry dough. So, they are no longer pigs in a blanket but hogs in a duvet. And we typically eat them with hot chocolate.

For the past two years, we have also acted out the Christmas story from Luke 2, which the girls have thoroughly enjoyed.

THE 12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS

Now, we typically do not do gifts for the girls. We certainly do not forbid others from getting them gifts, such as grandparents, extended family, or friends. We also do not forbid them from giving gifts. But in our immediate family, we do not do gifts because we want the focus to be on Christ, not on stuff. Since we fill the Christmas season with decorations and other activities, the girls have hardly seemed to notice.

Last year, however, we did incorporate gifts for the twelve days of Christmas, which begins Christmas Day and goes through Epiphany on January 6th. For those days, we kept doing readings, but we also had twelve books that were wrapped and ready to open, one each evening. The girls loved it, and we did too.

They loved opening a gift each evening, and we loved that each book was for the three of them together. They got to share the gift collectively as sisters.

You can find some book ideas for children here.

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In a nutshell, those are our rhythms and traditions for Advent and Christmas. Again, we are using The Kingdom of God Story Bible for our readings this year. You might use the Jesus Storybook Bible, the Biggest Story Bible Storybook, The Child’s Story Bible, or any number of other resources. Just keep it as consistently as you can.

Most importantly, make certain that you are setting your family’s focus on Christ. We love Advent because it is a chance to graft children into the story of Christmas, to emphasize how long God’s people waited for Christ to come. Because they are waiting for Christmas, they get to experience a little taste of that expectation each year. I hope this gives you a helpful sense of our family’s practices. May your Advent and Christmas be richly blessed.