Advent

Last year we started several new traditions in an attempt to capture more of the Spirit of Christ's birthday and a little less of the spirit of greed. We wanted to remove the push for tons of gifts, but replace it with tons of fellowship and togetherness. In the end, it was the best Christmas we had ever had. We had spent many happy hours as a family and with friends. We had served together and we had avoided the holiday headaches of shopping endlessly and paying off huge debts. The kids did not experience the after Christmas let down and they were very happy with the few things they received. All in all it was a great start.

One of the things that we tried was a Jessie Tree. This is a Christmas tree that contains 24 different symbols that you use as an advent calendar of sorts. Each symbol goes along with a different Bible story that walks you through the redemptive history of the world and culminates with Christ's birth. One story is read each day in December.

The boys loved making the symbols out of salt dough. We painted them and sprayed them down with an enamel coating to make them last. Then we hid them on the tree. Every day they would search to find that day's symbol and we would read the corresponding passage together. Unfortunately, I did not do a lot of research on the passages. We had a list we downloaded off the internet, but we did not check out the references beforehand. It made for a lot of fumbling and confusion and we often just resorted to telling a shortened version to the boys.

This year I am working on typing out all the passages (and gathering the correct ones) so that we have it all in one place. Hopefully this will make our reading time easier.

Happy almost-holidays.