Advent Activities

So we're celebrating Advent this year, even though we're not Catholic. The homeschooling group gave me several fantastic ideas for projects, so we're going to try to do them all.

• Fill the Advent calendar with nightly family activities, like "Play a game," "Make a special dessert," "Watch a Christmas movie together," etc.
• Use each night of Advent to add another figure to the nativity, and do some reading and discussion about each figure's role in the birth of Christ.
• Make an Advent "wreath" from house candles set into a bowl of beans. Wrap each candle in the appropriate color ribbon (especially since we'll just have to make do with the candles we already have, since we won't be able to buy any). Decorate with nature findings, like tiny pinecones, seeds, holly, etc.
• Bake a Christ Child's Birthday Cake. I'm letting the kids choose what flavor, and they'll decorate it themselves. On Christmas Eve, we'll set a candle in the center (I'm afraid we can't do 2008 candles), sing 'Happy Birthday, Jesus', and blow out the flame.

Next library trip, I'll poke around the shelves to see what we can find on Advent readings. I suspect we'll default to the Children's Bible anyway, or at least supplement.

Hopefully, the library will have a pretty good selection of Christ-centered story books in the children's section. We could probably endeavor to read them all if I came up with a good book list.