Simple Advent

I am sure you've heard of it because it is a pretty trendy thing this year, (not Advent) and I love it. But I'm not quite ready for it - The Jesse Tree - so I'm pondering ideas for next year, when I can have some prep time and really think through what this could look like for my family. And the word around my church is that next year the ladies will have a Jesse Tree ornament party- which would really help me get into gear.

So this year, we are doing simple Advent. (definition - the coming or arrival, especially of something extremely important)
For us, this coming, arrival, something extremely important is the birth of Jesus Christ, our Savior.

When I say simple Advent, I mean bear bones. simple.
After dinner (or breakfast depending on which meal allows more time) we:
1. pray
2. Wes reads the verses
3. we sing a carol
4. pray

as of recently, we've added:
*Our church had a "Birthday Party for Jesus" bash this past Saturday. They had these sweet stickers with all the manger characters. I took a piece of scrapbook paper and some ribbon and hung it on the wall by the dinner table at the boys' level. After each Advent devotion, one of the children places a sticker on the page. So far there is a manger, north star, sheep, donkey and three stars.

It's been slightly chaotic at times as Walker is learning the posture of prayer and makes great attempts to close his eyes, and bow his head, but sometimes he'll sneak a piece of bacon or make a funny face, etc. One night, the children were out of control with making one another laugh and we could not get them to focus on the scripture and Wes closed by praying: "Lord, teach us how to lead this well."

Through all the laughing, the bacon eating, the sweet attempts to have the posture of prayer and mimic the others, this has been a wonderful family devotion theme for us this Christmas. Isn't family devotion time wonderful? And isn't Jesus, our Savior - Emmanuel the greatest?

I just Love Christmas!