I hope everyone had a blessed Thanksgiving day and that you are still basking in turkey leftovers. We are slated to have turkey panini’s tonight a la my daughter Rachel. We are celebrating the twins’ first bday today! We even got up at 4:45 a.m. and went to some of the early-bird sales (first time ever) and felt like we participated in the great national shopping event. Amazing!
But now that we are just a couple of days away from the first Sunday of Advent, I thought I could safely share a few of our celebratory traditions. Since we have a Sabbath dinner on Saturday night, we will be kicking off Advent tomorrow. After dinner each week I have a little Advent gift for the grandchildren. So tomorrow night they will get their Christmas jammies. I want them to enjoy them for the whole month of December, so that’s why they are the first Advent gift. I also give each family an Advent calendar, the kind you can buy at Hallmark that have little doors that open with a Scripture verse under each one telling the Christmas story.
The second week I will give them each an ornament because by that time they are probably getting their trees up, so they can take them home and hang them on the tree. The third week will be the gingerbread house kit. Last year we had a marathon gingerbread house decorating extravaganza! It was actually quite a lot of fun and with a close supervision, they all did just great. I’m pretty sure I passed out after decorating last year, but as you can see, I revived, and now I will do it all again! This year I will get one house for each family, and the kids can help decorate one together (not one for each child). That way I think I will have a higher survival rate. Then the last week each child will get a book.
We enjoy spreading the gifts out through the month, and it gives the children such a lot of cousin fun, particularly when they all pile into their jammies! The individual families sometimes have daily Advent treats (candy or outings or small gifts) but I stick with one-a-week at my house.
The Sabbath dinner fare is on the lighter side during the month. Since we just had our Thanksgiving feast, I think tomorrow will be a salad and homemade pizza (with help from my pizza expert girls) and next week might be something like cheese and potato soup. We will build a fire in the fireplace and enjoy the northern Idaho winter ambiance: could be rain, hail, sleet, slush, or snow. But it’s Christmas inside!
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Thank you so much for sharing this Nancy. Our children are nearing the age of understanding, and participation and we are soaking up all the ideas we can.
Your last comment “it’s Christmas inside” reminded me of something our 6 year old son said a couple of months ago:
We had just started talking about Christmas and had promised the children that we would be having a tree. After showing the children where we were going to put the tree, our son came over to me and began to tell me about some of the things we could do to decorate. I can’t remember all of them, but his final request was that we put some decorations in the windows. As he said that, he became very shy and very quietly told me that that way everyone who sees our house will know that we are having Christmas inside.
Ahhh, what a beautiful post! My husband and I can’t wait to be grandparents, even though our sons are only 13 and 15. You are giving us some wonderful ideas! Thank you!
Thanks for sharing your Advent gifting plans! My girls are 16, 18, and 19 but I suspect they would enjoy getting Advent jammies as much as your grandchildren do. I typically get them each an advent calendar with chocolates inside, and my 16-year-old is starting to panic because I haven’t purchased them yet this year! I may even break down and give the Sabbath dinner a try this month – if it can be done with pizza and salad, surely I can handle that!
You have inspired me to brainstorm how to celebrate Advent with my own family. And I love inspiration!
sounds delightful. thanks for the ideas.
We are new to celebrating advent but my husband and I are embracing it with gusto this year. I am curious…do you still give gifts on Christmas Day/Eve to the grandchildren or just on Advent. Also, are you celebrating advent on Saturday (with your Sabbath meal) or are you doing another celebration on Sunday? Could you show me a picture of your advent wreath? Our wreath looks rather blaw. Love the idea of the jammies. I can hardly believe it but I found Christmas jammies in ALL the right sizes and 60% off to boot. Hooray! Hooray! Thanks for the great idea.
Yay for jammies!
Growing up in the Dutch ghetto (Pella, IA) we always celebrate Sinterklaas (St. Nicholas) Day (Dec 6) by leaving our wooden shoes (yes, we have pairs, but just to wear at the Tulip Festival, and for Sinterklaas Day, of course) by the door the night before, and we always get pajamas. They are perfect for wearing while opening Christmas presents on Christmas Eve (or Christmas Day if you wait that long 😛 ).
I’m looking forward to doing the same for my children some day. There is nothing in the world like brand new warm winter pajamas.
I think I’ll have to try my hand at helping my little sister make a gingerbread house this Christmas….
As I’m going back through all the advent posts, I want to say thank you again! There is so much good encouragement and example here – all the Wilson women need to get this together in a book, chock full of ideas, photos, recipes and the theology behind all of it. At this point it will have to be a stapled pile of papers. 🙂 Thank you again!