We’ve been celebrating advent for about 5 years now. We started with Jotham’s Journey. We read that 2 years in a row. Then we bought Tabitha’s Travels and Bartholomew’s Passage . This year, we are starting over with Jotham.
When I bought these books, it took a long time for Amazon to get them in. I bought them new. But apparently they can’t get them from the publishers anymore. They are now going for $80 and UP on Amazon. USED! Last week the prices started at $50. If we were done with the books, I could make a small fortune off 3 books! But we want to use them for a few more years. And by then, maybe we’ll have grandchildren, and we’ll pass them down to them. These books are just awesome! IF you can get your hands on them, you will LOVE them! Now, I’m not suggesting you pay that much for ONE book, but they are awesome books!
We light the candles on our Advent wreath, and snuggle under afghans in the living room, and read by candle light. We do have the Christmas lights on. I sit next to the tree so I can see to read. lol The kids take turns putting out the candles when we’re done. The first night of Advent we have egg nog to drink. And we have it again on Christmas Eve. Those are the only 2 times we have it, the kids like it, so only having it twice during the season makes it more special.
Last year, we started a The Advent Jesse Tree and we really like that, also. We use this book, The Advent Jesse Tree. It has a memory verse, suggested hymns, devotion and prayer starting December 1st and going through Christmas morning. The book has a listing of all the ornaments needed each day for the tree, so you can plan ahead. It also has drawings for everyday that you can copy, (with permission in the book for this), and turn into ornaments. This is what we did for several. We colored some of them in with colored pencils, and they turned out very nice. We are not searching for ornaments to replace the drawings, because we like them. We use a small, like 2′, Christmas tree for our Jesse tree. But you can use a branch. We used what we had. Besides, we don’t have anywhere to hang a branch. And the Jesse Tree makes a nice centerpiece on the dining room table.
I know I’m late with this, should have done it last month. But it’s not too late to start! If you get a book this week, you can do 2 days at a time until you catch up. We had to do this a couple of years, because we got the books late. The kids didn’t care, they liked doing more than one a night. Of course, our kids do like to stall at bedtime!
On Christmas morning, we all get up and eat homemade cinnamon rolls for breakfast. Do our devotions and stories, THEN open presents. Ok, some years the kids talk us into letting them see what’s in their stockings before breakfast. lol Yes, we hang stockings, but they are definitely NOT filled by anyone other than US! They just hold all the small stuff. And candy, of course!