Teacher Mama Tina: Ideas for Celebrating Advent: Preparing for His Coming!

Advent is upon us! But what exactly is this blessed season all about? Let's take a look at just ONE of the definitions of Advent, from Catholic.org:

The word Advent derives from the Latin word meaning coming. The Lord is coming. We may reflect that every year at this time we celebrate his coming , so that in a sense we can lose the feeling of expectancy and joyful anticipation, because at the end of the season, everything seems to return to pretty much the same routine. If that is the case, then our preparation may have been lacking and we have therefore been robbed of much of the true meaning of this season.

During Advent we recall the history of God's people and reflect on how the prophecies and promises of the Old Testament were fulfilled. This gives us a background for the present. Today we can reflect on the past track record of God and so begin to understand what it means to us now for the sake of what is to come, in our own future and that of our world.

© Liguori Publications Excerpt from Advent - A Quality Storecupboard The Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer

And what better way to prepare for His coming than starting (or for some families, continuing) our own Advent family traditions?

Here in the Rodriguez home, we're excited to do the following:

First up is the Advent Calendar from the Story of Christmas book set I bought at Fully Booked in Gateway Mall (I don't usually buy new, expensive books but I made an exception for this one!)

The Story of Christmas: Story Book Set & Advent Calendar

You can also buy this on Amazon.

It has 24 mini-books you can read to/with your kids starting December 1. Each book has a gold cord attached, so you can hang it on your Christmas tree after reading it! We'll be hanging it on our ~~Jesse~~ "Advent/Christmas" tree though, so no need to buy a Christmas tree!

The book opens up to reveal the 24 mini-books.

Thanks to fellow homeschool mom Mariel, we have our "tree" already. The kids helped "plant" it yesterday.

We placed the "tree" (branches from Mommy Mariel) in an empty Stik-O container, and put crushed egg shells and marbles at the bottom.

Took advantage of this time to get Tim and Rysse to practice "spooning" - great way to encourage fine motor skill development ;-)

Especially for little Rysse! ;-)

It's fun to crush egg shells! ;-)

We'll also do the Family Advent Wreath craft we did last year (we started in 2010). I posted other ways to prepare for CHRISTmas last year here too, just in case you want to take a look.

Tim with our Family Advent Wreath last year ;-)

We're also going to use the Jesse Tree (I'm hoping and praying that the complimentary one I'm getting will reach us in time for the 1st Sunday of Advent! If not, we'll probably use this free one from A Holy Experience.com).

We will also do our best to do this Advent Unit Study, which fellow homeschool mom Stef shared on our ROCKERs group page. I also bought some very good "non-Santa-ish" Christmas books from Book Sale (will post about these separately!) for our read-alouds, which we will try "rowing" to supplement the curriculum we already have. (We're not using Five In A Row, but I like the concept!)

Anyway, above all, we're going to focus on preparing our HEARTS for Jesus to make His home in. That's what matters most right? After all, even Santa knows that CHRIST is the reason for the season!