24 Days of Christmas - Day 3

Do you celebrate the Advent?  Do you use an Advent calendar?  We have not actually celebrated the Advent but do use a calendar to count down the days until Christmas.  We have filled the calendar with toys, chocolates, money, and little notes, going as far as having the children go on a scavenger hunt for their Advent gifts.  Last year we really began scaling down Christmas and this year are scaling down even more.  How do we keep the magic, make the holiday meaningful, and keep our children from being spoiled (which if anyone know my kids, knows they are definitely not spoiled)?

This year the Advent calendar gifts look very different from how they have in the past.  Inspired by author Isabel Wyatt in her 7 Year Old Wonder Book, I occasionally draw pictures for the children in a sketch journal and leave them on their bedside table to be waiting for them when they awake.  Last night I read to them the story of the Star Twins and instead of leaving the pictures by their beds I left them standing in front of the Advent calendar.

This is the outline of the picture for the Moon

When the book is filled - probably sometimes at the end of the school year, I'll pack the journals away with the other important items that I am saving for the children in hopes that they will pull them out as adults and remember this part of their childhood.

Final Picture of the Star Twins

This holiday season, I hope you are thinking about the spirit of the holiday - however you celebrate - and being conscious of the messaging you are giving to your children.

"Shall we liken Christmas to the web in a loom?  There are many weavers, who work into the pattern the experience of their lives. When one generation goes, another comes to take up the weft where it has been dropped. The pattern changes as the mind changes, yet never begins quite anew. At first, we are not sure that we discern the pattern, but at last we see that, unknown to the weavers themselves, something has taken shape before our eyes, and that they have made something very beautiful, something which compels our understanding." -   Earl W. Count, 4,000 Years of Christmas