For our Advent season this year, I did a little change-up.
We are always, in the rush of things, trying to Enjoy God and the season by retelling the story, giving gifts, receiving gifts, and trying to serve those around us. But to be honest, without intentionality (my word?) and planning, everything except the gifts goes by the wayside by mid-December.
This year, I bought the cute little bags at Ikea with numbers counting down to Christmas. We still did our 'Jesse Tree' type calendar for our Bible time and followed our beautiful Advent book, recounting and building up the story from Luke. But this bag idea was intended to help us Behold, Serve, and Enjoy. Each day had one of those words on a card inside. Any of the 'enjoy' days had chocolate or some special treat for us to enjoy. The 'Behold' Days had some way for us to Behold God's beauty or glory in some way. For example: 'star gaze', 'read poetry', 'nature walk with purpose', 'listen to Handel's Messiah'. And the 'Serve' had some way to serve another, for example: 'make bread for the guards at our gate', or 'choose a way to give big to someone in need', or 'make cookies for classmates' or 'clean up around the neighborhood'.
And the busyness of the month, school events, and two-a-day soccer practice for Sophia did indeed hamper the follow-through on some of these. But for the most part we did a better job of each of these things this year and it wasn't duty. The kids got excited about what was next and got into the things we were doing. I tried to plan the Nature walks on Saturday so we would not be rushed.
Here we went to a nearby area/school to find Christmas flowers to draw. Poinsettias bloom every winter here and are gorgeous. We took hot chocolate and coffee, all of our sketch books, and our small speaker to play some of Handel's Messiah.
Even mommy got into the sitting still and drawing.
