Advent

This Christmas season, we made a very intentional effort to focus on Advent, the expectant waiting for the celebration of Jesus' birth. Since we thought Luke was old enough now to begin to understand the real meaning of Christmas, we wanted to spend some time teaching him about it, as well as let him really participate in a way that goes beyond opening gifts and visiting Santa.

In fact, we did not even bring Luke to see Santa this year, or bring him up at all. When Luke saw a picture of Santa on some wrapping paper, he said "Humpty Dumpty?". We know Santa will be a part of Christmases to come, and we don't have anything against that, but we are going to let Luke discover Santa on his own. We thought that this year would be a great year to instill in Luke the truth about the reason we celebrate, with the hope that in years to come, the other things (Santa, consumerism, etc.) would not crowd this deeply-routed truth out of his heart.

So, I put together a list of advent activities to do on the 25 days leading up to Christmas.
Luke would open his "Christmas mail" (an envelope with a slip of paper listing the activity inside) each day, and then we would complete the activity together. Many of them focused on Jesus and the story of His birth. Here is Luke creating the nativity out of play doh.

And reading the Christmas story from the Bible with Daddy.

We also made birthday cupcakes for Jesus (all Luke's idea!)

And enjoyed eating them together on Christmas day!

The majority of our other activities were focused on giving to others. We really want Luke to understand that because God gave us the greatest gift, we should also give to others. We did simple things like dropping coins in a Salvation Army bucket, drawing a Christmas picture and placing it in a neighbor's mailbox...

and baking cookies to bring to someone at church.

We also did bigger things like buying a hat and gloves set for a child at the Julian Center (here is Luke showing off the present that he wrapped!),

And buying flowers, then passing them out at a local nursing home (I can't even begin to tell you how proud I was of Luke on this day. He was not even a little bit scared or nervous to walk right up to these people, hand them a flower and say "Merry Christmas!")

Luke also brought a coffee to a nursery volunteer that he adores, and helped pick out canned goods to drop off at a food pantry. Perhaps my favorite activity was cutting out the faces from the pictures on Christmas cards we were sent, gluing them to a Popsicle stick, and creating a "Prayer Pail" that we are using throughout the year to help us remember to pray for the friends and family in our lives. We draw out one stick each day before lunch and spend some time praying for the person/people on there. The greatest part is that we often find Luke over by the jar, pulling sticks out on his own and "praying" for them throughout the day.

The rest of our activities were really just for fun. We did a few crafts, lit candles and listened to Christmas carols one night during dinner, and took a drive to look at Christmas lights. Here is Luke trying his first candy cane.

And, another favorite...bathtub painting with red, green and white.

After we completed each activity, we glued it to a slip of paper and created a ring to add to our Advent Chain. It was really cool to see how many things we had done come Christmas day. But, it was even cooler to see that Luke really got it! He did not let us forget that Christmas was all about Jesus' birthday (in fact, until Christmas day, he thought the presents under the tree were for baby Jesus), and never once asked to keep the crafts, food, or other things we bought for other people for himself. He gave with an absolutely joyous heart. And now I'm crying...I think this is a tradition that will live on in our family!