I have heard of advent before and even did some form of it as a kid, but never knew what it really was, until I googled it. I mean, I didn’t want to do it with the girls if I didn’t know what its real purpose was. So according to Wikipedia, advent is a “time of expectance and waiting and preparation for the celebration of the nativity of Jesus at Christmas.”
For awhile, I was stuck on what to make for our countdown until Jesus’ birthday, but then I saw this and really liked it, but too bad that I was a little too late to order to get it in time for Christmas. Thus, I decided to make my own.
Each little bag contains a note that has some sort of activity written on it. Some things we have done are pick a Christmas tree, make a fire in the fireplace, read about the birth of Christ from their Big Picture Bible. Some are just good ‘ol fun activities to do as a family and others are activities to point the girls to the real meaning of Christmas. We started it on the first of December, but with Soul’s arrival, we kinda missed a few days, but now the show must go on. Hopefully, we can keep up with the rest of the bags as Brave and True get excited to open one as they have to take turns each day.
If you are doing advent, what are you doing to celebrate it?
we made an advent paper chain,like your bags,each paper chain has a fun activity for the family,such as “bake gingerbread cookie together” or “read the christmas story at bed time” your bags are darling!!
Hi Ruby
I bought a wooden tree (years ago) with little doors marked 1 -25. In each door is a little ornament that you hang on the outside of the door. It's been hard keeping the ornaments on each day with my little 2 year old rearranging them each day. : ) This year I am placing activities to do each day. (Watch a Christmas Carol, Charlie Brown Christmas, make cookies, do something nice for someone, etc.) We are also finding Jesus in the Old Testament each day until His birth in the New Testament. It's been a real blessing. I love your little bags. They are lovely!!!
We in Germany are celebrating the Advent. On the one hand we also have this little calender with 24 doors, and behind each there´s waiting something: little poems, chocolate, tiny pictures an so on.
On the other hand we have an advent wreath with four candles. In the 4 weeks before christmas we light one after another, so on christmas all 4 candles are burning.
Please excuse my bad english :O) I am a frequent follower of your blog but never dared writing a comment because of my english!
All the best to you and your family and greetings from cold and winterly Germany,
Elisa
those are adorable- just like to originals. after sunday (mass market!!!) i will do my christmas decorating.
love these! my husband and i are also doing an advent calendar for the first time this year. i hope to get more creative as the years go by but for our first time, we just wrote our advent activity on decorative paper and folded them then we taped them to the mantle of our fire place. plus, i've been posting each day what our activity is so our family and friends be apart of our holiday celebration.
happy advent!
my family loves this idea! i, to, didn't really know too much about the advent calender, but i think we will be doing one this year!
oooh i like it a lot!!!
I LOVE advent calendars. We had at least a dozen in our house growing up, and we traded who got to do what each day. I, so far, have four advent calendars and each is very different. We have clip-a-days (candy chain made with celophane), a tree wallhanging with ornaments, a store-bought door-opening kind, and my new favorite: a pocket calendar. In the pocket calendar I filled each pocket with a note to my husband of something I will do for him that day, a scripture, or a words to a Christmas hymn. Oh and a peppermint. It is his calendar this year (he didn't grow up with advents like I did and it has been fun for him to have a calendar all his own). I love the anticipation of advent calendars!
We just got our Advent Calendar in the mail for Etsy today! We picked out this simple one from Pi'lo: http://www.etsy.com/view_transaction.php?transaction_id=22393976
I can't wait for our 19 month old to be old enough to understand and participate is fun Christmas family traditions!
-mara
http://web.me.com/josh.wolff/Adoring_Audrey/Blog/Blog.html
So cute! I wish I would have started an advent calendar but it's too late now 🙁 Enjoy your little activities each day!
I love it! how did you make it??? where'd you find the stuff? did you use stamps? etc. i must know. i love this!
oooo so adorable and pretty! love!
B
I made a little calico one, inspired by Elsie's from http://abeautifulmess.typepad.com/my_weblog/.
I put little love notes in for my bf and mini dates for the weekend.
He likes reading them each day and the mini dates are fun.
Your bags are an adorable idea!
wow! i love hearing everyone's ideas. the all sound so fabulous!!!
susan- i used muslin for the bags and got some ribbon from michaels. then, i got iron on transfers and made the dates, so i could use whatever font i wanted. really easy! you will love it!!!
I am totally crushing on your advent calender….ours is a serious of little stockings filled with notes much the same as you guys and the occasionally treat!! I love the pix in this post.
lovely as usual.
love your advent garland! we, too, have filled each day to with an activity to do, such as seeing christmas lights, learning about the story of christmas, or making a gingerbread house…
hi ruby… i discovered your blog in 'artful blogging' magazine, and i must say i'm hooked! my own kids are 13 and 15 and i SO wish this kind of technology existed for me 10 years ago! anyway, i just want to say what an inspiration you are! your creativity, your generous gift of sharing little details, and most of all your beautiful faith! thanks for being a young woman of faith and an example of a loving mommy and wife!
Aside from our advent calendar, we have several Nativity sets, and every night I move the various Josephs and Marys around the house. In the morning, my son loves to find where they are on their “journey”. On Christmas Eve morning, they are all in their stables, ready for Christmas morning when all the baby Jesuses will finally appear.
One word- beautiful! i especially love it in the last pic with the beautiful lighting. I know if I was a kid i would enjoy seeing what was in each bag.Do you really ever need to buy anything when you are so good at making everything? 🙂 You just leave me wanting more & more. 🙂
so gorgeous!
Such a cute idea! How did you make it? I would love to try it for next year!
The Big Picture Story Bible is awesome! Unfortunately we are in Germany for Christmas and couldn't bring it in our luggage, otherwise we would have been reading it too. But we'll be talking about the real reason for Christmas a lot.
the activities are awesome! I can't wait until next Christmas when my daughter is 1 to try this (we are a bit late this year)!
Well, here in Croatia, Advent officially starts on fourth Sunday before Christmas. Lately we've become more, hmh I'd say „westernized“, so some folks are already having their Christmas trees and ornaments, but actually it was tradition for ages that you don't put any ornaments nor do you sing Christmas songs before Christmas. And so we stick to that in my family and I believe it's really special for my kids (5, 4 and 2, and one on its way :)) to live Christmas when it actually comes. Then we have this “Christmas time” 'till middle of January, even sometimes until 2nd of February (Candlemas), so we have really lot of time to enjoy.
Sooo, for Advent we also have advent wreaths with four candles, and my kids love it, it gives them this feeling of anticipation. Tomorrow, on St. Lucia day, we'll put some wheat to grow, and till Christmas it will be nicely green „grass“. We sing a lot of advent songs, and tell kids about „waiting for next coming of Jesus“ (in Catholic church we concentrate on it till 16th of December). From 17th of December we'll start real preparations for Christmas, we'll prepare kids for Christ being born then and now by making Nativity set figurines and stuff. Sorry for the lengthy comment. And congrats for your little Soul, all three of them are adorable. I always feel encouraged to live my faith reading your blog. You'll be in my prayers for the great work your blog does.
Your advent calendar is simply beautiful. I can't get it out of my head. I'm sure your girlies are loving it!!
And congrats on your precious new addition to the family. Am sure you're cherishing every minute!
We've always done something for advent every year (I'm 15 now). When I was little one year we did a thing where you made an ornament having to do with the Christmas story every day (like sheep, a star, etc and there were verses to read with it). I think it was out of a book my mom had. When we were a little older a lot of years we read fictional advent books about the birth of Jesus from a made-up character's point of view (here is one from the series: http://www.christianbook.com/jothams-journey/arnold-ytreeide/9780825441745/pd/441745/1021575306?event=61984SBF|1219782|55020).
Now, my siblings and I being a minimum of 13 years old, we read from an advent devotional book.
When we read the books we always light an advent wreath, and get to take turns lighting, which somehow is still awesome. Haha! While we light the candles we say “Advent tells us Christ is near, Christmas tells us Christ is here. Jesus is the light of the world.”
🙂
i posted this exact advent on my blog. i'm really jealous that you made yours already! and you had a baby…i really dislike you :O)
Yeah, you really have a lot of talent, especially with 3 little ones now!