Advent begins Sunday, November 29. I love the weeks leading up to Christmas. This year we will be able to embrace Advent even more than usual because we will be taking a five week winter break from our lessons. I can't wait!
Books we will be reading ~ We have many Christmas books and I am sure we will read many others that are not on this list. However, these are the ones I plan to do activities around.
- America's Christmas Heritage
- Cole Family Christmas
- Kirsten's Surprise
- The Legend of St. Nicholas: A Story of Christmas Giving
- Too Many Tamales
- Christmas in the Trenches
- Silver Packages
- The Crippled Lamb
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| The kids' absolute favorites |
Advent activities ~
We have some old and some new plans this year.
- Visiting the Gingerbread House Display at the Grove Park Inn
- Celebrating St. Nicholas Day on Dec 6
- Celebrating St. Lucia Day on Dec. 13
- Going to Return to Bethlehem, an annual Christmas story reenactment
- Making Advent wreaths at church
- Going on a Christmas light drive-thru
- Visiting Christmas window displays downtown and having hot chocolate
- Going to the annual Christmas parade downtown
- Visiting the display, Christmas Creches from Around the World
Crafts and Baking ~
- Making snowflakes
- Making a wreath crown for Kirsten (Anne's American Girl Doll)
- Baking all sorts of cookies
- Making treats for others
- Making mason jar gifts
Charity ~ Charity is very important to our family. As the kids are getting older, there are so many hands-on opportunities for them. I know we will do some of our usual charities: Operation Christmas Child, the library book tree, Manna Food Bank tree, and Meals on Wheels gift boxes. However, I think we will be doing some new things this year. There are so many opportunities from "adopting" a teen off the gift tree at church, to packing lunches for the homeless and a host of ideas in between. We will announce soon our final choices.
The Nutcracker ~ Of course, our Advent season would not be complete without the kids performing in the Nutcracker. It completely takes over our lives for about two weeks of Advent. This is their sixth year of performing in the Nutcracker and the Mouse King. I can't believe it! Anne has four roles this year and Dean has three. It is going to be very busy back stage. They will be performing in four shows this year. Here are a few pictures from the past ~
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Blessings, Dawn
I have such fond memories of dancing in the Nutcracker when I was a girl.
ReplyDeleteWe bought a new book in the Jothan's Journey series to read during Advent this year, but I still need to figure out what else we'll be doing. I think my youngest would appreciate an Advent change-of-pace when it comes to her schoolwork. Thanks for sharing some great resources for me to look at!
Thank you for sharing your books. I always try to add a few more to our pile and you have given me a few ideas
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