Advent Family Night

We do Christmas a little bit differently in my family.  We are Catholic, and celebrate Advent for the four weeks prior to Christmas, then celebrate Christmas from Christmas Eve to Epiphany, the traditional 12 days of Christmas.  Advent is a time of waiting, a season similar to Lent in which we prepare ourselves for the birth of Jesus.  We used our family night this week to introduce M to the concept of Christmas, and what we are waiting to celebrate.

First off we made our own Advent wreath.

I also showed her our family Advent wreath, and taught her that we light one candle each week and that this weeks candle symbolizes hope.

We read a couple of nativity stories that we had checked out from the library.


We watched The King is Born, a great little video from a series that I had watched as a kid.  M loved it, and it was a perfect way to bring the nativity story to life for her.

After that we watched "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas" on TV before we got the kids ready for bed.  Hey, we're only human!  It's hard not to get caught up in the fun parts of the "traditional" Christmas season!

Tomorrow I'll post pictures of our Advent calendars, Jesse Tree, and Manger Padding; some other fun ways that we are helping M be involved in the process of preparing for Jesus.