Our Advent Adventure

Immanuel. God WITH us. What an AMAZING thought! If God is with us then why don't we behave like it? During this time of year we should be focusing on the true meaning of Christmas. We should not get "wrapped" up in the commercial aspects of Christmas. However, every time I log on to facebook I see yet another post of what someone's "elf" is doing and many times the elf has done something naughty. (He or she has done something for which we would punish our children.) I'm not against doing elf on a shelf or Santa (although we do neither) but it breaks my heart that the topic of conversation is elves and Santa not JESUS at this time of year. God placed this conviction on my heart a long time ago but this year He gave me a way to put feet to my faith. Thanks to the idea of Abe Hodges, our awesome youth minister, I found an advent devotional to read as a family every night with my children. The devotional I chose for our family is great because it approaches the topic in a way that children understand and it includes fun activities to do to reinforce the topics.

We have absolutely loved our advent family devotional time each night. I'm going to share a few of the things we have done so far. I'll continue to make posts of our Advent Adventures.

We have our own advent wreath. It's VERY simple, but it gets the point across. We will light a different candle each week until Christmas arrives. Our first candle represents HOPE. For more on advent wreaths click here. Also in that picture you see our "Promise Pocket." There are  promises from God in the bag. Each night we choose one and read it. We talk about how God keeps his promises. We initially talked about the promise God made (and kept) to send  the Messiah.

This is our "Names of Jesus" wreath. As we are reading our devotional each time we come across a different name for Jesus we write it on an ornament and place it on the wreath. So far we have two names on our wreath, King and Immanuel.

This is our advent kiss calendar. Very simple to make. Each day the boys cut open a section that contains a Hershey kiss for each of them and a scripture. They sometimes get a real kiss too. :) I read the scripture while they enjoy their candy. It's really neat because many of the scriptures I used this year Jake has already learned in AWANA.

Jake and Merry Ellen getting ready to listen to our devotional for the night. (Jared didn't want to be photographed.)

Jake hanging a name of Jesus on our wreath.  I bought a real wreath and we talked about it's evergreen branches and how Jesus is alive and ever present. 

May the REAL meaning of Christmas be ever present in your hearts and minds.

---Ellen