How To Celebrate Advent With Your Family

Tomorrow begins twenty-five days of Advent and preparing for Christmas. It's a season of great expectation. For most teenagers, that expectation is primarily related to the electronics and clothing that might be waiting for them under the tree. So how do we as parents cultivate an expectation for something different in the hearts of our kids? How do we cultivate in them a desire for the coming Christ?

As someone who didn't grow up in a liturgical church, the church calendar is still a fairly new rhythm in my life. I wish I could tell you that as a pastor I've figured it all out and our family does devotions every night, right after a fully organic meal and P90X, but that's sadly not the case. I sat down this morning and made some notes for Nat and I to talk about tonight so we can actually attempt to celebrate Advent with our kids this year. Last year we ordered an Advent devotional and I think it arrived mid-December, but not sure we actually cracked the pages. I'd love for this year to be different. 

I wanted to share with you our family's Advent plan, partly as accountability for me to actually do it, and also as an encouragement to you in thinking about how to celebrate this season with your crew. 

Saturday- Nov 28

• Climb in the attic and find the bin that has the advent wreath, candles, calendar and devotional books.
• After the kids go down, thumb through some of the devos with Nat and figure out which one we will use this year. 
• Set up the calendar and candles

Sunday Night- Nov 29

• At dinner, explain to the kids the meaning of Advent and WHY we're going to celebrate Advent as a family. (See below for a more detailed explanation of Advent). 
• Explain HOW we're going to celebrate Advent.
• Each night before bed (for the next 25 nights) we're going to gather in the den together for 10-15 minutes. 
• We'll turn off all the lights (except for the white Christmas tree lights). 
• We're going to turn off all screens and leave phones in a different room. 
• One of us will pray something like, "Holy Spirit, help us to be attentive to God's presence with us now."
• We're going to light the 5 Advent candles (adding one each Sunday night: Hope, Peace, Joy, Love, Christ)
• We're going to sing  'O Come, O Come Emmanuel' (acapella, adding a new verse each Sunday night)
• Following the song, we're going to say Psalm 46:10 together, "Be still and know that I am God." 
• After that we're going to have a few minutes of silence each night. 
• During that time we're going to think about moments that happened in our day where we saw God show up and moments in our day that we are grateful for. 
• At the end of the silence, we'll each popcorn prayer something like "I praise you God, and today I am grateful for...."
• Following this time, we will read a short passage from our Advent devotional.
• Then one of us will ask what prayer needs there are- we'll make a list in a family journal and pray for different needs each night. (church, schools, neighborhood, family, friends, sick, lonely, hungry, etc.)

The Next 24 Nights

• Non-negotiable repeat

I can already look at the calendar and see that one of us or both of us are not going to be home 9 of those 25 bedtimes. My hope is that even if it's just one of us home that we would still do this practice and make it a non-negotiable for 25 days. I'd love to share this post with our babysitters for the nights we're both gone and ask them to do this with our kids. Hopefully by then, our kids will know the drill and can lead it on their own. 

I'm sure this won't play out exactly as I hope, but it's at least a plan and place to start. Let's not let this season of Advent slip away without taking advantage of forming our kids in a way that leaves them longing for the coming Christ.  -Drew


A More Detailed Explanation of Advent (written by Justin Holcomb)

The word “Advent” is derived from the Latin word adventus, meaning “coming,” which is a translation of the Greek word parousia. Scholars believe that during the 4th and 5th centuries in Spain and Gaul, Advent was a season of preparation for the baptism of new Christians at the January feast of Epiphany, the celebration of God’s incarnation represented by the visit of the Magi to the baby Jesus (Matthew 2:1), his baptism in the Jordan River by John the Baptist (John 1:29), and his first miracle at Cana (John 2:1). During this season of preparation, Christians would spend 40 days in penance, prayer, and fasting to prepare for this celebration; originally, there was little connection between Advent and Christmas. 

By the 6th century, however, Roman Christians had tied Advent to the coming of Christ. But the “coming” they had in mind was not Christ’s first coming in the manger in Bethlehem, but his second coming in the clouds as the judge of the world. It was not until the Middle Ages that the Advent season was explicitly linked to Christ’s first coming at Christmas. 

Today, the Advent season lasts for four Sundays leading up to Christmas. At that time, the new Christian year begins with the twelve-day celebration of Christmastide, which lasts from Christmas Eve until Epiphany on January 6. Advent symbolizes the present situation of the church in these “last days” (Acts 2:17, Hebrews 1:2), as God’s people wait for the return of Christ in glory to consummate his eternal kingdom. 

The church is in a similar situation to Israel at the end of the Old Testament: in exile, waiting and hoping in prayerful expectation for the coming of the Messiah. Israel looked back to God’s past gracious actions on their behalf in leading them out of Egypt in the Exodus, and on this basis they called for God once again to act for them. In the same way, the church, during Advent, looks back upon Christ’s coming in celebration while at the same time looking forward in eager anticipation to the coming of Christ’s kingdom when he returns for his people. In this light, the Advent hymn “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” perfectly represents the church’s cry during the Advent season.

Here's a short video to explain the Christian calendar.