Advent activities list

Did you know Orthodox Advent has already started? For the Eastern churches (including Byzantine Catholics and perhaps others I don't know of), Advent is a time of fasting similar to Lent. A bit different to what we're used to here, and Priest's Wife over at Fear Not Little Flock has a rather lovely post about how she intends to celebrate it, following the Proverbs 31 model. Check it out! :-)

Here in the more Western tradition, I have finally organised my advent activities list. Not quite the same as last year's, and I think it's a slightly different set of Bible verses each day too, as there seem to be different variants of the Jesse Tree. (You can see the set we used last year here) The verses are not related to the activities in the slightest this year however!

Update: I've linked each week to the post showing (some of) those activities now that we've done them. This post is also linked to ABC&123's Show&Tell series - for lots of other great Advent/Christmas/general activities, check out their site!

First week of Advent
Sunday 28/11: Put up Christmas tree (no reading)
29/11: Make Christmas cards (no reading)
30/11: Get out Jesse tree, Christmas bookshelf and red postbox*; read a Christmas story (no reading)
1/12: Make Xmas cake (Creation: Gen 1:1-31; 2:1-4)
2/12: Learn Jingle bells (Adam and Eve: Gen 2: 7-9, 18-24)
3/12: Make jingle bell bracelets (Adam and Eve cont.: Gen 3:1-7, 23-34)
Saturday 4/12: Make stable and Waldorf-style Holy family (Noah: bits of Gen 6 and 7)

Second week of Advent
Sunday 5/12: Bake scones, have cream tea (Abraham: Gen 12:1-3)
6/12: New Christmas book about St Nicholas (Isaac: Gen 22:1-14)
7/12: Candlelight dinner (Jacob: Gen 25:1-34, 28:10-15)
8/12: Public holiday - Make gingerbread house (Joseph: Gen 37:23-28, 45:3-15)
9/12: Learn Away in a manger; Reindeer paper plate craft (Moses: Ex 2:1-10)
10/12: Make toilet roll snowflakes (Samuel; 1 Sam 3:1-18)
Saturday 11/12: Make Waldorf shepherds, sheep and angel (Jesse: 1 Sam 16:1-13)

Third week of Advent
Sunday 12/12: Make felted star, eat gingerbread house (David: 1 Sam 17:12-51)
13/12: Buy gift from World Vision (Solomon: 1 Kings 3:5-14, 16-28)
14/12: Learn the Holly and the Ivy (Joseph: Matt 1:18-25)
15/12: Paint a Christmas tree or possibly some holly (Mary: Luke 1:26-38)
16/12: Open red postbox, hang up cards; make ironing-bead ornaments (John the Baptist: Mark 1:1-8)
17/12: Take Christmas card to school, eat mince pies (Jesus is Wisdom: Ecclesiasticus 24:2, Wisdom 8:1)
Saturday 18/12: Make Waldorf wise men, centurion, star, camels (Jesus is Lord: Ex 3:2, 20:1)

Fourth week of Advent
Sunday 19/12: Toast crumpets, play Christmas tree game (Jesus is Key of David: Isaiah 22:22)
20/12 Make felt crowns, hang stockings** (Jesus is King of the Gentiles: Psalm 2:7-8, Eph 2:14-20)
21/12: Play out nativity story with Waldorf figures, celebrate Christmas (Jesus is Emmanuel: Isaiah 7:14, 33:22)

* the Red Postbox, constructed out of an old nappy (diaper) box, red paint and some cotton-wool "snow", is where we keep Christmas cards that arrive so we can open lots and hang them all up on the same day. It's a tradition I carried over from my own childhood. I don't expect to get very many this year because we are absolutely rubbish at sending any out ourselves!
** A few days early, yes, but we will be away visiting relatives over the actual Christmas period so we are having our own celebration at home and with friends first using our own traditions.

Second Week of Advent

December 6th, second Sunday of Advent. We're supposed to be making angels but have skipped it due to not finishing the trees yet. But St Nicolas came today and brought a Wii Fit Plus (just the CD-rom, as we already have the basic Wii Fit), which everyone was very pleased about. We particularly like the game where you flap your arms to fly like a bird. I found a whole new set of muscles in my arms!

December 7th. Today Froglet's nursery is being visited by the saint too. He usually brings such items as satsumas, peanuts and cookies (I think I've mentioned this before)

December 8th. The Ten commandments are today's Jesse Tree reading. Time to learn a new memory verse (the last one was Genesis 1:1) - obey your mother and father!

December 9th The Engineer is ill this week so not much is happening. We will have to catch up on making the Jesse Tree ornaments this weekend, but are still having the readings every day. Froglet is very much enjoying them although I think he often doesn't understand.

December 12th. We have chickenpox! But that is not stopping us in the slightest as Froglet only has it mildly. The Engineer helped me paint the kids' hands and feet to make hand-foot angels which we were supposed to do ages ago and didn't get round to. I still have to cut them out and stick them together.

Advent week 1

Please forgive the lack of photos. Our old computer died and the new one is a Mac... needless to say, I have not yet worked out how to move the photos onto it from the camera, or how to find them once they have been moved, let alone put them on the blog! A task to add to this weekend's list.

November 29th, first Sunday of Advent, we put up our tree. Nice and high so Nutmeg can't get at it! Although the baubles are mostly child-safe (papier-maché). Froglet helped decorate the lower branches, while Nutmeg tried to eat everything within reach.

November 30th, first Monday of Advent, we started the Jesse Tree. There are some nice family devotions over at rca.org. We have brought the potted kumquat tree in off the balcony to use as the Tree. It's a bit big for the table but otherwise perfect. Kumquats do badly on their own stock so they tend to be grafted onto some other citrus fruit tree - meaning that there is a clear stump with the kumquat branch growing from it. Almost ideal for a Jesse Tree... of course Christ was not grafted onto Jesse's stock, but we gentiles are grafted into His family!

December 1st. No activity because Froglet goes to nursery all day on Tuesdays, which wears him out. We just did the reading, having coloured in the bauble the previous day. And I hung up his advent calendar. Photos may follow...

December 2nd. The story of Noah. Froglet is mildly obsessed with floods. Every time it rains he asks if there will be one (the last one we saw was the summer before his birth!) so he's fascinated by Noah. I make sure to stress God's promise that no flood will ever wipe out humanity again! We also tried to make Christmas cards by painting paper and then using a cardboard comb to make designs in it. Not hugely successful so we settled for painting on the table, drawing in it with our fingers and making prints from that instead.

December 3rd. Today's activity is one from my to-do list (over there in the sidebar): paper plate Christmas trees. What with waiting for the paint to dry and Froglet not feeling like doing crafts, we haven't managed to finish these yet!

December 4th - finish trees *cough* or not.

December 5th. Story of Isaac. Not a very pleasant story! I have another post on this coming.

Planning Advent

...is one of the many reasons I have been so very absent this month.

I love Advent. As a child it was a really special time. We had a list of special things that would be done together, one for each day in Advent, pinned up on the fridge where we could all see it. We got to suggest meals we wanted to eat during that time (I guess we could have done this at other times too, perhaps it didn't occur to us!)
Very simple things, like having hot chocolate with candy canes - candy canes are more special if you don't live in the States I think. Or decorating the Christmas tree. Or going to a Christmas market - often the one in the centre of Brussels, where we lived, but sometimes a trip to nearby Germany.
During Advent the classical music that was a staple of our background noise - at least when my dad was in - was replaced with lovely Christmas carols. Not that I don't love classical too, but Christmas carols are wonderful! I have no idea how many CDs of them we must have had. I now have four of my own.

So of course I want Advent to be special for our little ones too. Last year I looked all over the blogosphere for someone who might have laid out a plan of Bible verses and so on to go through in Advent. Couldn't find anything at all. This year, quite by accident, I came upon Hubbards Cupboard, where they have exactly that. Unfortunately it doesn't quite match the order I had in mind, and some days rely on various books we don't have and have no access to, but I was thinking it was pretty good anyway, until I came across something even better:

The Jesse Tree
Jesse tree family devotions

The tree is such a lovely idea, one new decoration each day, each one reminding you of that day's scripture as it leads you gradually through the Old Testament showing God's faithfulness and anticipating the promised Messiah. I'm surprised I haven't come across the concept before, being interested in traditions and also having lived mostly in parts of Europe where Catholicism is the predominant branch of the Church, but thrilled to make a new discovery. Check out the links if you've not come across it before either.

I still want to do the other special things for Advent too though. Here's what we did last year, when Froglet was three:

Day 1: Light Advent candle 1, Put up tree
Day 2: Make red postbox (to keep cards in), make cards
Day 3: "We 3 kings" song, wise men story from Bible stories book
Day 4: Make a star for the door
Day 5: learn "O Christmas Tree"
Days 6-9: No activity (in UK for weekend)
Day 10: Light Advent candle 2, Christmas story with donkey
Day 11: Bake scones, have cream tea
Day 12: Put up nativity scene minus shepherds
Day 13: "Deck the halls" song
Day 14: Open red postbox and hang up cards
Day 15: Light Advent candle 3, Christmas party with Froglet's godparents
Day 16: Shepherds' story, "While shepherds watched"
Day 17: Add shepherds to scene
Day 18: Wrap gifts, "we wish you a merry Christmas"
Day 19: Make gingerbread for house
Day 20: Decorate gingerbread house
Day 21: Froglet to nursery for special Christmas crafts morning, "Silent Night"
Day 22: Light advent candle 4, add Jesus to scene
Day 23: "Away in a manger"
Day 24: To Brussels for Christmas with grandparents

Each of these activities was written down on a slip of paper which I read out to him in the morning when he opened his advent bag containing the paper and a chocolate coin or small gift. We bought a small box of Lego bits and divided them up between some of the bags, which was a big hit, but we're not doing it this year. He has so much Lego already!

To finish with, here are some more links. Use Advent Celebrations to teach Patience by Maren Schmidt, whose Montessori blog/column I enjoy very much.
And What are we waiting for this Advent, which is the start of a series hosted by Christine Sine over at Godspace. Enjoy!