Advent is here! Happy New Church Year! Come, Lord Jesus!
As you know I raised 8 children. They were in two sets. I had four children and then 10 years later had four more. During those years I did several Advent activities with them. I did not do all these ideas with all of them. I did some with some of them and other ideas with the others. I would like to share those Advent ideas with you in case you would like to try some of them with your children. Don’t do too many or you and your children may feel overwhelmed.
Advent Wreath
We would always have an Advent wreath. That is the one Advent activity I did with all 8 of them. We would make it and I would explain all about it (according to their age level). My husband Mike would bless the wreath. Each day at a meal we would read a simple prayer, and the children would take turns lighting the candle. I used to use a little book with the prayers and explanation of the wreath. Now you can use the internet and find all you need on there about the Advent wreath. If we didn’t have 3 purple candles and one pink then I would just use whatever candles I had and put 3 purple ribbons on three of them and one pink ribbon on one.
Jesse Tree
For a few years, I led them in the Jesse Tree. The Jesse tree represents the family of Jesse, father of King David. Each day of Advent a homemade ornament is added to the Jesse Tree. These symbolic ornaments each represent a prophecy foretelling the Christ, the Messiah. I found a book with the symbols and had the kids color them, and I put a string on them to hang them. Each day we would explain the symbol. If they were old enough, we read a little about it from the Bible.
Straw in the Manger
I would give each child a small empty box with no lid. I would also give them a plastic sandwich bag of hay and a small baby Jesus. Every time they did an ‘act of kindness’ or ‘spoke in a kindly manner’ they could put a piece of hay in their empty box. The goal was to get a nice soft bed for Baby Jesus. On Christmas Eve, they put the Baby Jesus in their box. You can often find a small statue of Baby Jesus at the thrift stores or save them from the year before from the ones that come in the Three Kings cakes.
Gifts for the Poor
I would have the children make a big shoebox for the poor. They all had to put something in there that belonged to them, that was in new condition and that they liked very much. It had to feel hard to give it away, reminding them that this gift for some needy child would be a Christmas gift for Jesus. Then they also put other things that we would buy together like markers, crayons, coloring books, a shirt, Hotwheels, toothbrush and toothpaste, etc. They really had fun doing this. We would go to Juarez, and they would give it to a child around their age.
When the children were older and had some money, we would go through the catalog of “Food for the Poor.” In it, you could buy pigs, chickens, donkeys, beans and rice, computers, a water pump, sewing machine, school supplies, etc etc. Each child would pray about how much they could give. They would give it to us, and then my husband and I would add to it. Together we would count the money and choose something from the catalog around that price. We did that for many years.
There are many ways they can give to the poor. We are having a Toy Drive right now for the kids we serve in Juarez. You can see more about it on the Lord’s Ranch Facebook page.
St. Nicholas Day
On December 6th, the feast of St. Nicholas was a fun celebration. We would all pick names and keep it secret. Everyone would buy two candy bars for their special person, and on the eve of St. Nicholas Day, we would each put out a shoe (or you can use stocking) and then go and deliver the goodies to the person’s shoe. It’s a fun thing we still do on the Ranch today. We tell the story of St. Nicholas, how he would help people secretly. We are each a St. Nick to someone. The next day we try to guess who gave us our treat.
Other Ideas
- We would visit the elderly. We would take some food or something to show them and stay and visit them for a while. Sometimes we would sing Christmas songs for them.
- Write cards to someone who is lonely or sick. I would mail the card for them.
- The manger scene is of course very special. Our manger scene characters were not breakable so they were able to move the characters around as they pleased. It was very sweet watching the kids interact with the figurines.
- We had an Advent calendar and the kids took turns moving the star on the calendar each day. There are many kinds of Advent calendars out there.
- I always had lots of Christmas books that we would read to them or that they on their own would read. I still get those books out every year for the grandkids. What’s funny though, is that my adult children will look at them and say, “O I remember this one, I loved this one!”
These are some ideas that we did. There are many more out there. Just look it up on the internet.
Remember, don’t try to overdo it. Do a few things well and make the Advent Season leading up to Christmas more meaningful.
God bless you,
Mary Ann / Mother Hen
Blanca Breceda says
I loved all the things you did with your children MaryAnn. Thank you for sharing. Love you.
Anita Infante says
Wonderful ways of preparing our Spirit for this holy celebration. I still remember how holy and beautiful the anticipation of Christmas was for me when I was a child with the activities our mother guided us all through Advent.