Advent

This year as a family is actually (I'm a little embarrassed to say) the first year that we have every done an advent calendar, we have done the advent wreath once, but 25 days of stories has been a really neat experience. 

What I found was this advent board book with 25 little board books inside of it, nothing to hang on the wall, which I liked, but it is also telling the whole story of the coming of Christ, it's perfect for the little ones, and durable!  It has been very biblical so far, which I also like. 

Along with this we have been reading Chicken Soup for the Soup Christmas Treasury for Kids, which I would recommend for kids 6 or 7 years old and up, Rob and I have gotten a lot from these stories also, several of them have left me teary-eyed!  Its a story of Christmas spirit everyday.  We have been reading these every night at dinner. 

At our house dinner is a definite, I don't want to say ritual, tradition maybe?  Anyway, every night, all year round, dinner is a sit-down together event.  I really am glad that we have chosen to do that, it was actually more of Rob's "thing", that I kind of rolled my eyes at a little several years ago when it began, but now, I see it as a very important part of our family.

Something else that has become a tradition at our house has been prayers at dinner time, we have always said thanks for the meal, but since, I think it was Thanksgiving last year when my dad wanted to go around the table and have each of us say something we are thankful for, Zach thought that was the greatest, he loved that each of us prayed at dinner, and since he loved to lead us in prayer, he started asking each of us to thank God for something before he would say "Amen", now it is tradition, the kids take turns each day of the week (with Rob leading on weekends) leading  us in our prayers of thanksgiving, each of us just saying one thing we are thankful for that day.

Does your family have any advent traditions?

Both of the books that we are using this year can be found on www.christianbook.com.