I have decided Advent is my favorite time of the year, especially as a homeschooling mom. Due to the May arrival of our new baby....or will it be the end of April?, we are still schooling more than I'd like at this point. However, we are cutting back, and encorporating our advent traditions into our school day. It is a blessing to watch and wait for the coming of the Lord with our children. Sean will inform any willing to listen that this time of year is for preparation, patience, and penance. And that purple symbolizes this. So at this point, our house is bare of red and green, but abundant in purple. We have an "advent" mantle to remind us. And this week we take a break from purple and enjoy rose colored candles and our word to ponder is Joy. As the Church tells us, Gaudete! We wait in joyful hope for the coming of the Lord. This is our third week of advent and boy are we getting excited. We will cut down our tree this week, up in the mountains. Patrick has taken a day off of work so we can enjoy the whole day. We will pack a picnic lunch, cut a tree, go sledding if there is enough snow, and have a dinner date out. The tree will wait for decorations until Christmas Eve, when we will break out our boxes containing red and green. We have some other fun traditions, old and new, that we are enjoying as well.
I have a basket in the living room with 27 wrapped advent/Christmas books. The kids get to unwrap one a day and we all cuddle up and read the story. Today was a book about Our Lady of Guadalupe, celebrating todays feast day. Tomorrow is a book on St. Lucy to help celebrate her feast day. Tomorrow, Sarah will wake before the rest of the house and make cinnamon rolls and hot cocoa to celebrate St. Lucy the way the Swedish do. We will read all about her courage and martyrdom and pray for her intercession. As the saint of persons with eye troubles, she is special in our house. Why is this so? Well part of her torture to death involved the emperor ordering her eyes plucked out. Despite this God allowed her to see, until she was killed. Anyhow, moving on....
Another of our favorite traditions is our family read-aloud time in the evening before bed. We have a trilogy of books by Arnold Ytreeide, and these are a beautiful advent addition for us. This year the last of the books went back into print and I was able to pick it up. The kids were so excited as we travel with Tabitha this year. All the books follow a main child character in ancient Israel at the time of Christ's birth. Each evening there is chapter to the story ending in a dramatic cliffhanger, and then a devotion. The greatest part is that all three children intersect in each other's stories. When Tabitha met up with Jotham from Jotham's Journey my kids filled with such excitement. It was as if an old friend stopped by for a visit. Every night they try to guess what will happen next as our friend Tabitha tries to find her family after being separated to go save Jotham. My hunch is somehow she will end up in the stable with the Holy Family on Christmas Eve.....it tends to be a pattern! I was a bit concerned at first due to some of the suspense and evil characters. But to date, in four years, there has never been a nightmare. It is a good discussion point as well. We talk about evil in the world, and evil people and actions. It has been a great blessing.
We also have our advent wreath with colored candles....anything involving fire, and dinner is a big hit.
Our Jesse tree is a great tradition. Patrick put up a barren wooden stick with branches in the corner of the kitchen. I am convinced some visitors think this is our Charlie Brown Christmas tree, but oh well. Every day we read scripture recounting the ancestors of Christ starting with Adam and Eve. We have discussed them, Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, Issac, Ruth, and others and will until Christmas Eve. There is one ornament for everyday with a symbol related to the "person of the day". Being too lazy to craft 4 years ago, I had the kids draw the symbols with colored pencils. Now, I am so glad I did. We giggle as we look at artwork of kids so young. Moses's basket looks a bit like a loaf of bread in a blue puddle. I picked up a great story book relating to this as well. It tells of a grumpy old carpenter making a Jesse tree and grudingly retelling the tales to a young boy. We also watch our friends the Holy Heroes Advent Adventure online every day. They have a Jesse Tree that they talk about and use feltboard stories to tell the tales. They also talk about the major feasts that happen during advent. Yes, St. Nicholas stopped here too. Next year, Sean thinks we should put out every pair of shoes we own...were working on selflessness!
My hope is that we don't just count down the days to Christmas here, but that we truly prepare the childrens' hearts for the three-fold coming of Christ. For His coming at Bethlehem, His presence at every Mass, and His coming to greet us at the end of our earthly lives. To do so we must learn to die to self and live for others. So we have our wooden manger and bucket of straw. When the kids do a good deed they get to put in a piece of hay to make the manger nice and soft for baby Jesus. In order to help them, we have a list of some things they could do like make your siblings bed, play a game with your sibling, make a treat for someone that serves you (like the mailman), pray for a sick person, etc. This year we also assigned each family a Kris Kringle. Everyone drew a name from a hat and this is our secret person during advent. We are supposed to do a nice deed or leave a little treat for that person every day. We are getting the hang if it. Sean generously put his pocket-knife on Sarah's pillow the first day. She brought it to me and said, "But I don't want or use this." We are starting to get the idea that we can give our person our cookie, or make their bed, or supply the fridge with beer....uhm....all as a surprise.
Wishing everyone a holy advent season, and a very Merry Christmas!
