Family Advent Night - Week 1

We never do have Christmas Eve or Christmas Day at home with our little family, so we tend to make a big deal out of Advent. It's a great teaching opportunity. This year I got some new ideas from Family Man. Because we'll be in Cincy on Dec. 2 (the first Sunday of Advent), we decided to celebrate Monday night. We desperately needed some quiet family time together. We had a chili supper together, lit the first candle ("Hope") and talked about the hope of Christmas and Christ coming again. My advent candles were a hoot. All I could find after my downsize from the move was a 3 broken Valentine candles and a Blue candle from De's wedding. We didn't care. We lit the blue candle and had a blast.

The the kids opened their 3 advent gifts (a Chrismas game, Advent crafts and a Christmas book - all by Family Man.) Let me stop here to say that we have noticed that if we wait until after all of the family Christmas gatherings to have our own family Christmas, it's a bit of a downer. The kids get so many gifts they're almost gifted out. So we decided to go light on the gifts, and put a little more into Advent. I'm also noticing the danger of our kids getting so used to recieving things that they lose the wonder of it. So we're actually considering in the future making our first Advent gathering our own little Christmas. To spread out the gifting a little.

Then we played our new Christmas game...."To Bethlehem." It was completely and visciously sabotaged by Caiden and even Karissa. But it was fun.Daddy had to flush the toilet as part of the game on his journey to Bethlehem. (Gotta get the game to understand.)

Then...our Advent craft. David and Kayla worked tirelessly on the beautiful Christmas Tree ornament while I tried to keep Caiden and Karissa from scattering the pieces from here to Israel.

We shared a special sparkling grape juice toast - I think we toasted to "advent crafts", at the request of Kayla. Whatever.

Oh yeah...and some white chocolate macadamia nut break-and-bake cookies!

Meanwhile - Caiden enjoyed his own personal toast. By this time I was totally wishing it was time to put him to bed. But he endured to the end.

We cuddled up for a great family Christmas video....

Then read part of our new book and put 3 tired kids to bed. It was fun.

When David was quizzing the kids after the devotional, he asked the kids what is something that we have hope for....Karissa said in her goofy way...."That GOD is coming to our house!"

I like that. Emmanuel. God with us. That is my hope.