Advent

Perhaps I am just a traditionalist at heart, but I still believe that Christmas is about celebrating the birth of Jesus. I know that these days it's mostly about presents and Father Christmas (or his American counterpart, Santa), but I happen to hold fast to my values in the face of such red tummied, white bearded adversity.

And so, because of this rather stubborn viewpoint, I refuse to buy an advent calendar about Ben10 or Star Wars. Now this is no judgement on anyone else. If you have Hello Kitty or Dr Who advent calendars hidden away ready for next week, then I actually envy you in part. Enjoy your chocolates. Unfortunately I like to make life harder for myself.

For the last few years we have used a reusable advent calendar and I have stuffed it with chocolates (I used to only put one in and make them share it, but that went wrong a long time ago) and a bible verse for each day. Every morning, whilst eating a chocolate and dribbling it into their weetabix for added taste, we look up the bible verse and we countdown to the coming of Jesus. I like doing it this way. Our children are bombarded with a consumerist Christmas every way they turn and so I feel that at home we should at least attempt to show them why we have Christmas in the first place.

This year, I have written the verses on little strips of paper so that while we are looking them up and reading them together, Jonah can be decorating the strip of paper so we can turn it into an advent paper chain. It's always hard to find something that a 5 year old and an 11 year old can join in with, but I'm hoping this will do the trick.

So, in case you are interested in having a go yourself (and to save you the time I spent finding them all), here are the bible verses I have used:

Dec. 1 John 1: 1-5
Dec. 2 Isaiah 9: 2-7
Dec. 3 Isaiah 11: 1-10
Dec. 4 Jeremiah 33: 14-16
Dec. 5 Luke 1: 5-10
Dec. 6 Luke 1: 11-17
Dec. 7 Luke 1: 18-25
Dec. 8 Luke 1: 26-38
Dec. 9 Mathew 1:18-21
Dec. 10 Matthew 1: 22-26
Dec. 11 Luke 1: 39-45
Dec. 12 Luke 1: 46-56
Dec. 13 Luke 2: 1-5
Dec. 14 Luke 2: 6-7
Dec. 15 Luke 2: 8-12
Dec. 16 Luke 2: 13-14
Dec. 17 Luke 2: 15-18
Dec. 18 Luke 2: 19-20
Dec. 19 Micah 5: 2-5
Dec. 20 Matthew 2: 1-2
Dec. 21 Matthew 2: 3-6
Dec. 22 Mathew 2: 7-8
Dec. 23 Matthew 2: 9-12
Dec. 24 John 1:14

It's just my little way of making sure Christmas is about who it's meant to be about. We'll have fun with it. I hope you enjoy yours too.