For all of you Catholic readers, you know it is officially the advent season for us. For non-Catholics who do not know what advent is, it is the time period of four weeks before Christmas. It is a time for preparing ourselves both spiritually and mentally for the coming of Christ's birthday. There is an advent wreath that people will use with four candles that symbolize the four weeks of advent:three purple and one pink. Usually there are bible readings and meditations that go along with each day of advent. I thought I would share with you some ideas that will get your young pre-schooler involved with the beauty and richness of the Advent season.
Make a window cling advent wreath for everyone to be able to see all day long instead of just during the evening advent wreath prayers. There is a particular order to lighting the advent wreath, but to make it more kid friendly as long as they pick the right color candle to stick the flame on than I do not pay attention to if it is correct or not. The older children can focus more on that with the actual wreath later on.
St. Nicholas' feast day is December 6th.
Feast of the Immaculate Conception is December 8th.
December 10th is the Feast of Our Lady of Loreto. I know some friends who decorate a gingerbread house on this day.
December 12th is the Feast of Our Lady of Quadelupe. We make sure to have some kind of mexican food for dinner that night and fiesta music.
December 13th is St. Lucy's feast day. That may be a good night to pack up in the car and look at the different Christmas Lights displays.
Along with these special feast days (and there may be some more that I am not remembering at the moment. Please share in the comments if I missed a special feast day) here are some more daily things you can do as a family that some friends and I have thought up together.
This year I decided to introduce a new little aspect of our Nativity set. This was the first day doing this so I am curious how my kid will enjoy it. I stumbled upon this idea here
https://partofthemain.wordpress.com/series/advent-readings-2011/
I know some families that wrap 24 of their favorite Christmas children's books and each evening the kids take turns opening the book for the night. I recommend checking out your local library for some titles you may like without having to buy them.
Singing a new advent specific hymn each day.
Secret santa, but instead of giving gifts, doing acts of kindness for the family member they picked out each day. Maybe each Sunday everyone can draw a new name so everyone gets a chance to share love with more than just one family member.
Additional activities that come to mind...
Go to confession as a family one night
Spend some time in Eucharistic adoration...for little ones I suggest maybe 5 minutes to start and then stretch it out more each week you go? Adoration is harder for young children than Mass because usually is it very quiet, but i still think it is important to introduce them to this beautiful gift of adoration that our faith has.
Decorate the Christmas tree/or Jesse tree if you prefer waiting until Christmas to put up your Christmas tree.
Make home made Christmas ornaments
A night learning about the story behind candy canes
Bake christmas cookies/or make christmas candy to share with neighbors or lonely older church members one night.
Put random acts of service ideas for others outside of the family and take turns picking one to complete.
What additional ideas can you think of for your littler ones to enjoy?
No comments:
Post a Comment