Blog
 

Advent

News Flash!  There are some chances to win an advanced reading copy of Eve online, if you’d like to enter your name into the pile.  The deadline is December 31st for both of them.  One is at Library Thing Early Reviewers.  Scroll down to find Eve.  Another is at Good Reads.  Good luck!

Today, I’m asking for ideas (and help, I suppose) for celebrating Christmas with children–making it meaningful but at the same time, fun.  I haven’t been snoozing all this time; I do know Christmas is right around the corner, but I’m not so concerned about this year as I am about next year, when Liliana will understand more of the “rules.”  This year, she only knows that there’s a “pitty tee” in our living room, and that there are lights everywhere.  “Pitty,” she says every morning when she walks into the living room or up the stairs where the banister is wrapped with a lighted garland.

We didn’t celebrate Christmas growing up, at least not in the conventional way.  My father told us every year, without fail, that it was a pagan holiday, and he didn’t feel we should celebrate it–not get sucked in by the “rat race.”  A few things remained, however, from my mother’s childhood.  We did what she did and dressed up in our parent’s bathrobes to put on a short play each year, while our parents sat side-by-side on the couch.  We didn’t limit our repertoire to the Nativity Scene or the Shepherd on a Hillside or the Three Wise Men (after all, we had ample number of kids to go around!).  No, I remember one year doing the story of Belshazzar the king who (in the Old Testament book of Daniel) gathered together “his nobles, his wives, and his concubines” that they might drink with him.  “Suddenly the fingers of a man’s hand emerged and began writing opposite the lampstand on the plaster of the wall of the king’s palace, and the king saw the back of the hand that did the writing.  Then the king’s face grew pale, and his thoughts alarmed him; and his hip joints went slack, and his knees began knocking together.”  Of course, he called in his diviners and conjurers, but not until Daniel was called in did he learn what the handwriting predicted–the doom of his kingdom.  I remember spending hours just on the handwriting, or maybe my brother Matt did most of the artwork, for that’s his forte.

We gave no gifts, although we received gifts each year from both sets of grandparents.  I especially remember a gingerbread house sent to us from Germany one year from my aunt Mary and uncle Ryan.  Those were pleasant surprises.

We often went to a Pannekoeken Huis Restaurant on Christmas morning, because it was quiet, and because Mom needed a break, too.  The day was uneventful, and maybe, just maybe, we’d get to watch the evening holiday TV special scheduled for that year (in my eighth grade year, it was The Sound of Music).

I haven’t figured out what to do about Santa Claus yet.  Little L. doesn’t understand anything about him yet, nor anything about his supposed Christmas Eve flight, nor anything about his amazing reindeer, and I have a feeling that by the time she does, she’ll already know the truth, so that’s not what I’m after.  I’d like to do things that quiet her, that focus her on the true event–the birth of Christ.  I bought an advent calendar from Garnet Hill this year, because I thought it would be a splendid way to look forward to Jesus’s birthday, where on the final day, the 25th, we might make a small birthday cake for Him.  I earmarked another great idea, though, by Julie Ree at Brownie Points’s blog (see it here) where you can make the cutest pyramid boxes on a string.  [To all you who are agnostics and atheists, this may sound a little Disney-ish for you, and I’m sorry about that, but truly this is where I’m at right now, and I’m honoring that don’t-know-what-to-do feeling.]   I’ve not been able to find a decent children’s advent book, though.  What I’m looking for are short stories that I can read to her each night before bed (while she’s savoring that small piece of chocolate or candy from the advent calendar)…that either work as a whole or that work as individual “lessons.”  Can any of you recommend some that you’ve used?  Or even one?

Also, I’ve purchased a small Swedish candle ring that holds four white tapered candles, to mimic the lighting of the candles each Sunday at church.  I thought it would be lovely to include a short reading (a poem or a song or a story) as we light the next subsequent candle, each of the three Sundays before Christmas, possibly at our Sunday lunch together, again looking forward to Christmas day, on which day the last candle is lit (I think).

I have plans to do special activities that involve the birds and animals out-of-doors, too–one of which is slathering peanut butter and nuts on pine cones and hanging them.  I think Liliana would enjoy that.

Over the years I’ve collected a jumble of possible activities that might anticipate the holiday season in a meaningful way.  One friend suggested that we place another separate gift under the tree.  Inside the box would be a catalog, say, from Samaritan’s Purse, or some other non-profit organization, with a certain amount of money.  Your child then gets to choose how he or she is going to spend it to help someone else.  Another idea: decorate a glass jar, label it something like Pay It Forward or Good Gifts or Helping Others.  Throughout the year, donate your extra change (I suppose in the child’s case it would be his or her allowance money or gift money), and at the end of the year, make a few purchases with it–either for Operation Christmas Child (filling shoe boxes for children who wouldn’t otherwise receive gifts) or some other cause your family has taken an interest in.  There are plenty of children and families in third-world countries waiting to be adopted.  [I just met a delightful young woman, Natalie Rolfe, when we were returning from the Ukraine.  She was coming home to Texas for a brief stay.  She had been working at the Lulwanda Children’s Home in Uganda as a housemother.  What fascinating stories she had to tell!]

Keeping the number of gifts down will not be a problem for us.  We’ve never been about “stuff,” so I think it will be easier to keep it to one or two gifts.  [Laugh now, because I may have to eat my words!]  The problem will be explaining it to Liliana, as she gets older, when all her friends hit the mother lode every holiday season.

Let’s see, that about covers it.  I’ve never done Christmas cards.  We don’t exchange family gifts, other than with both sets of parents.  Really, we’ve cut out everything that could be labeled as a chore or responsibility (when you’re really honest with yourself), and Christmas is now something we look forward to–a season of quiet contented happiness, giving in alternative ways–a dinner here, a movie night there, baked goods here.  I really try to “gift” throughout the year, when I see something a family member or friend might like.  I think it’s more spontaneous and not forced.

One last thing, if you’d like to treat yourself during 2009, you might want to pick up one of Elisabeth’s lovely letterpress calendars (from Black Pearl Press) for yourself or for a friend.  Aren’t they amazing?  [Update on 10.1.10: Black Pearl Press seems to have been changed to Stripe and Field.]

Any other thoughts on holiday things you enjoy doing with your family–kids or no-kids?  I’m all ears.

Leave a Reply