Thanksgiving is over, the turkey has been eaten, the tree and lights are up, and the house is mostly decorated. We had a wonderfully big Thanksgiving with my husband's family. We are so thankful to live close to them and celebrate with them!
And now, Advent is already upon us! Today is the first Sunday of Advent, and we are doing our Advent wreath again this year. Last year, we used our church's handout for our family's time, but this year, I was surprised by how many wonderful and free devotional resources you can find online that can help you with preparing for Christmas. Here are a few that I found (all are free!):
We will be using probably a combination of a few of the above. As the boys get older, I'm looking forward to using some of the more advanced resources.
Books
Christmas also means that we get to pull out some of our special books. Here are some of the books that we'll be reading this season. This may seem like a lot, but my boys LOVE to read. There are also a number of Christmas stories and poems in My Book House Vol. 2 that we've been enjoying.
Songs and Hymns
One of my favorite parts about Christmas is the songs. As we think about Advent, we will also be celebrating some old hymns. Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus and O Come, O Come Emmanuel are a couple of my favorites as they look forward to the birth of Christ. We will also be memorizing Luke 2:11.
Advent Calendar
We also will be doing our muffin tin advent calendar like we did last year with fun things to each day throughout the month of December. But as this post is already super long, it will be a post for another day.
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| Making a Gingerbread House with cousins for one of their birthday parties. |
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| More birthday party fun - pinata! |
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| Button with his great-grandma at 92! |
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| Thanksgiving meal |
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| Four of the Hagelberg boys |
And now, Advent is already upon us! Today is the first Sunday of Advent, and we are doing our Advent wreath again this year. Last year, we used our church's handout for our family's time, but this year, I was surprised by how many wonderful and free devotional resources you can find online that can help you with preparing for Christmas. Here are a few that I found (all are free!):
- Seattle Union Gospel Mission's Christmas 2011 Devotional
- They also have a number of other ideas to help the needy on their Action page.
- Ann Voskamp's Jesse Tree Advent Devotional
- Created by the author of One Thousand Gifts, this devotional is very well done, but you can only get to it if you subscribe to her blog either with an RSS reader or your email.
- A Family Inductive Bible Study Guide for Advent
- Those who like Kay Arthur's materials, may really like this family-friendly Advent guide. It was not done by Kay Arthur, but tries to mimic her approach. This would be better for older children as there is a lot of Bible marking and reading.
- Celebrating Holiday's Advent Resources Page
- Contains weekly readings, history of Advent, plus lots of other Christmas goodies. This site is great for many of the major holidays.
- Reformed Church in America's Jesse Tree Family Devotions
- Short, daily family devotions using the Jesse Tree
- Jesse Tree Coloring Pages
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| Advent 2011 Week One |
We will be using probably a combination of a few of the above. As the boys get older, I'm looking forward to using some of the more advanced resources.
Books
Christmas also means that we get to pull out some of our special books. Here are some of the books that we'll be reading this season. This may seem like a lot, but my boys LOVE to read. There are also a number of Christmas stories and poems in My Book House Vol. 2 that we've been enjoying.
- Christmas in the Manger by Nola Buck
- This is No Fairy Tale by Dale Tolmasoff
- The Little Drummer Boy by Ezra Jack Keats
- The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats
- Books by Jan Brett: The Hat, The Mitten, The Twelve Days of Christmas
- Snowflake Bentley by Jacqueline Briggs Martin
- The Nutcracker
- Saint Nicholas: The Real Story of the Christmas Legend by Julie Stiegemeyer
- The Littlest Angel by Charles Tazewell
- Who is Coming to Our House? by Joseph Slate
- Legend of the Candy Cane by Lori Walburg
UPDATE (11/29/11): After picking up a few of the books above from the library, we decided to remove some of the holiday books from our reading list. An Orange for Frankie by Patricia Polacco and The Story of Holly and Ivy by Rumer Godden are both extremely long picture books. Buddy could probably handle them if I had the time to read to him uninterrupted, but Button doesn't have that sort of attention span at 2 years old. Also, we took out Madeline's Christmas by Ludwig Bemelmans. The boys have been on a Madeline kick lately, but this particular book isn't very good. It's really all about a magician and barely talks about Christmas at all. I really cannot recommend it. I did, however, find a book called The Nativity illustrated by Ruth Sanderson with beautiful artwork. The words in the book are directly from the Gospels of Matthew and Luke.
Songs and Hymns
One of my favorite parts about Christmas is the songs. As we think about Advent, we will also be celebrating some old hymns. Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus and O Come, O Come Emmanuel are a couple of my favorites as they look forward to the birth of Christ. We will also be memorizing Luke 2:11.
Advent Calendar
We also will be doing our muffin tin advent calendar like we did last year with fun things to each day throughout the month of December. But as this post is already super long, it will be a post for another day.
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