Choose A Special Advent Activity To Start This Week

Advent begins tomorrow, a sign we are starting the most wonderful time of the year! We need so much Christmas this year, and now is the perfect time to focus on celebrating the birth of our Lord and Savior. When Jesus Christ is at the center of our holiday season, everything else fades away.

Traditionally, Advent begins four Sundays before Christmas. The Advent wreath has four candles: hope, peace, joy and love. One is lit each week, accompanied by Scriptures and hymns on that candle’s theme.

You can also make or buy your own Advent calendar. Instead of four Sundays, the calendar usually has 25 openings to begin on December 1. The anticipation of Christmas builds as you get closer day by day.

In the past, I’ve done something different each year for my Advent calendar. Last year, it was an adorable stacked set of poinsettia boxes. In 2015, I gifted myself with a stack of wrapped books and opened one each day. A couple of years ago I read Ann Voskamp’s book The Greatest Gift, and used her tags to make a Jesse Tree. Another year, I made a countdown calendar with the pretties ornaments on it. The “what” you use doesn’t matter as much as centering your thoughts and prayers on Christ alone.

This year we’ll be doing a few different countdowns with our youth group, including the poinsettia box calendar. We’ve printed out verses from the Christmas story Scriptures and put them in order from December 1-25. They’ll get to take turns opening boxes each Sunday and Wednesday, reading the Scripture and enjoy the treat inside. We also found some adorable Jesse Tree sticker pages that the teens can assemble with their families and read Scripture together every day.

My prayer for this Advent season is that you’ll find your own way to count down the days until Christmas.  May the anticipation of the days to come draw you closer to the Lord in so many ways.

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