Day Four - ADVENTure of Christmas

As we prepare for the final stages of prepping for our ADVENTure, we can focus on faith. 

Many Christians across the world look for ways to make Christ the center of their Christmas advent activities in an effort to bring their faith to the forefront of their holiday season. Sounds hard, right? I mean, we are inundated daily by sales catalogs, flyers, commercials and the ever-constant bombardment of advertisements for the newest, latest and greatest. The solution? Find a Christmas song everyone knows, find some printables online to coincide with the focus, incorporate it into your daily advent so that while your kiddos are engaged in the coloring, you can have meaningful discussion as to the deeper connection between the symbolism in the song and your faith. It’s proven that while kids are engaged, their minds are more open to dialogue than if you’re just standing there preaching to them. This is a great way to start that dialogue.

To download a copy of the printable, click here.  There are two links at the end that will take you to two sources of an online printable coloring page for each of the 12 days of Christmas.  One is here.  The other can be found here.

Another way to tie in your faith is to create a Jesse Tree.  The Jesse Tree is basically an advent devotional calendar.  There are ways to really tie it into your advent activities and create a more Christ-centered Christmas for you and your family.  The story of the Jesse Tree can be found here.  That link has a downloadable schedule of devotionals as well as a printable paper ornament to coincide with each lesson.  The Feels Like Home Blog has a free downloadable e-book.  I think this one is BEAUTIFULLY done and the ornaments they use as a family are just awesome.  Another can be found here. And yet another blogger gave testimony of how the Jesse Tree directly impacted her family and how it really helped solidify the holiday to her children. What a blessing!  She included a printable on her blog too.  Find that here.

The Jesse Tree is definitely something that would require some planning if you really wanted to go all out for handmade ornaments and heirloom pieces that you could use year in and out.  

I hope you're enjoying the series and that your FA-LA-LA is in high gear!