Longest Belated Post Ever: Advent, Christmas Traditions & Santa

Okay, so I meant to post this almost a month ago....December 10 is when I started it...and since I promised some girls that I would answer some questions about this advent stuff...here it is...sorry it's a month late...the month of December and advent activities and gift making must have taken over:

About the middle of last week we ran into a problem. Asher was BORED with advent.

He loves the "unwrap a book everyday until Jesus' birthday" idea.

He loves the singing and the praying.

But he was not enjoying the "lesson" part.

The study we were using is not boring...it is great! But for this almost 3 year old it was just not interactive enough. He'd sit there quietly throughout the lesson but he wasn't listening — he'd be in a daze or would be fidgeting with something.

We want Asher to LOVE advent. We don't care if he understands every deep spiritual truth or can explain the symbolism of each character. We want him to be in awe of the story of our how Jesus, our Savior, came to live as Immanuel — God with us. We want him to adore the Christmas story. We want him to look forward to hearing about how angels announced Christ's birth. We want him to be in awe as he listens to how even wealthy, wise kings left their home and traveled many miles to worship the true King.

So, what did the Apel's do when advent wasn't going quite like they'd aspired?

Made changes.

Simplified.

After much discussion, Charlie broke up the "Christmas Story" into the number of days that we had left until Christmas. Each day, we read from the beginning and add a little more to the story. Asher likes to act it out with his nativity as Charlie tells it. Then we answer questions pertaining to the story. After just a few days of this new schedule, he is liking it much better.

I'm sharing this to encourage you that if advent isn't going how you'd hoped...make some changes! Adapt different reading plans or studies to work for your family! Simplify if you need to! The whole purpose is to meditate on Jesus...to anticipate his coming. We can't do that if we're overwhelmed with trying to fit in all of these cute activities or forcing our families to sit through a devotional that is inappropriate for them.

With that said, I am going to share a few more ideas (ha) that I've stolen from others that maybe you'll like to try next December?

Each day of December, in addition to our book countdown, Asher would open a box from our matchbox advent calendar. The most difficult thing about making this calendar was finding the matchboxes. Walmart carries them in what they call their "kitchen gadgets" aisle...it seriously took me about 40 minutes and talking to 6 different employees to finally pin them down. Cover the matchboxes in scrapbook paper, modge podge and stickers.

Asher LOVED drawing these each day. He would ask me several times a day if "it was time yet" to read about our activity. This created many opportunities to talk about how excited we were about Jesus coming to be born as our Savior and about how excited we are about Him coming back to take us home to heaven.

Each day he would find a note that would tell him what activity we'd do that day. Most days we would do them as a family in the evening, but if it was a busy day, the kids and I would do it together during the day. Some days were very simple-just a coloring page or making a craft. Other days were more involved-we'd go somewhere, have a larger craft or have someone over for dinner.

My sister posted about their Advent Activities here.

Here are a few of the things we did to celebrate Jesus' coming:

We went to a Live Nativity at a church in town. They had animals and characters dressed up as the Christmas Story was read and Christmas carols were sung.

Tahoe Express

Because one of my favorite traditions from growing up was looking at Christmas lights, I stole this idea from another blogger that I stalk for totschool ideas...for the record, I don't know her either, but I wish I did!

One evening, we ate dinner and did our advent reading right after Charlie got home from work, gave the kids a bath and put them in their pj's...it was 6:30pm and Asher thought he was going to bed for the night. We told Asher it was time to find out what activity we'd be doing that night. When he opened the box for that day, the note told him to go look in his bed for the 'golden ticket' to the activity we'd be doing for the evening.

Here is the file that my graphic designer tweaked from Confession's of a Homeschooler's Minivan Express ticket. Click on the picture above for the pdf if you'd like to use it.

He found the golden tickets under all of our pillows to ensure our seats on the Tahoe Express. My kids hadn't read Polar Express, but we'd been watching plenty of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse's ChooChoo Express that they were so excited!!

When they were buckled in their carseats, they each found a cup of popcorn and sippy cups full of hot chocolate as we drove around neighborhoods to look at the Christmas lights.

The cute Tahoe Express Conductor

And, of course, went to this house for the grand finale:

There is a sign in the front yard that tells you what station to tune your radio to and the music that is playing is perfectly synced to the timing of the lights. If you live in B/CS and haven't seen this house, you have to go next year! It's in Pebble Creek on Congressional...it is magical!

I loved that their neighbors to the left of them put this sign in their yard:

Gingerbread Nativity

My cousin, Sarah, emailed me this after the last advent post. I think we're going to do the Birthday Cake for Jesus (which we've never done before) and I'd love to try the gingerbread nativity:

Every year we get a cake made from the store that says, "Happy Birthday Jesus" and we sing happy birthday to Jesus on Christmas Day. It brings me to tears each year because that is the true meaning of Christmas that we often forget with all the hustle and bustle! One year one of the nieces said, "Wow, we're so lucky to get presents on Jesus' birthday! What did we get Him?" EXACTLY!!!!!!! Another thing I did last year with my nieces is that we made a gingerbread manger scene. I just looked it up online and found a ton of ideas! It was a graham cracker stable with marshmallow sheep, tootsie roll horses, marshmallow Mary, Joseph and Shepherds who held candy cane's as staffs. Coconut was sprinkled all over to be snow. The kids really got a kick out of it and it beat just making a gingerbread house! I only have one photo of it and it's after it's been moved from one location to the next so it doens't look the best.

Look how cute it is:

Here is the link to the instructions that she used. I am putting this on our list to do next December.

We did sing Happy Birthday to Jesus on Christmas morning with candles in the cinnamon rolls. It was very sweet to watch the kids (all the cousins) sing so excitedly. I wish we would have gotten a video or pictures. We'll have to add that to the list next year, too.

A few more traditions that we started this year:

Christmas Card Prayer Box

If you sent us a Christmas card this year, we will be praying for you throughout the new year! Each day during Family Worship, we draw a new card from the "Prayer Box" and pray for one of you. I first heard of this idea a couple years ago from Marylou, but Kendra had this on her list, too. I love that it we will be starting a new habit to daily pray for family and friends.

I covered an old envelope box with scrapbook paper, modge podge and used some of the stickers from the matchbook advent calendars. I may have to redo the box...I don't know how it will hold up with all the big cards that we got this year.

Pictures from Christmas Past

Emily and I decoupaged some $1 frames from Michael's with scrapbook paper and I framed all of our Christmas pictures since our first Christmas as an engaged couple. All except the Christmas that I was very pregnant with Asher. For those of you who know me well, it's no surprise that I had NO pictures taken that year as I was 50 lbs overweight :) It will be fun to see how how much we change over the years.

Santa Claus

If you read the last "Christmas" post, you know that we don't "do" Santa Claus. We know and love many people in our own families and church who "do" Santa; we have just decided not to include him in our Christmas celebration. If you didn't read that post and you'd like to know more, read here.

We've had several questions about Santa since that post and I'd like to address them here.

How do you keep your kids from spilling the beans to others about Santa not being real?

We've never told them "Santa is not real." At least not yet...but we hope that, just like in any other area, that we will teach them to respond in grace. Right now,they know who Santa is, but to them he is fictional just like Mickey Mouse or Diego....fictional, like he really is. We're not set on sheltering them from Santa...I mean, even if we tried, how could we? That jolly, fat guy is everywhere! They watch cartoons and will occasionally read books with Santa in them. The difference between our kids and others are they are not anticipating Santa coming to our house on Christmas Eve because we haven't prepared them for that. All year long, but especially through our advent study in December, we are preparing for Jesus — He is the one that we can't wait to come on Christmas — not Santa. Most parents prompt their children's belief in Santa or even threaten with "Santa is watching, you better be good..." which creates the expectation that Santa will be bringing them gifts on Christmas, but our kids have no idea that Santa is even "supposed" to come to our house.

Which leads to the next several questions...

How do you tell your children to be good without Santa?

We try to be consistent in our training and discipline (without bribery) all year round, so it's no different with Christmas. We don't need to tell them that, "Santa is watching" this time of year, because we are constantly talking to them about the truth that God sees everything they do — obedience and disobedience. We've seen that bribery tends vgf to develop a greedy or lazy heart as they will only be motivated by what they will get and not motivated to obey out of love and respect for God, their parents and others.

How do you let them know that they've been good if they don't receive gifts from Santa?

Ironically, the magical thing about Christmas is that we weren't good — that's why we needed Jesus to come rescue us from sin! Christmas isn't about being good all year and the anticipation of some reward based on our merit. That's every other religion or worldview — not the good news of the gospel! Christmas, Jesus Christ coming for us, was about none of us being good or worthy of any gift and God coming and dying for all of us out of his love and mercy. Being able to learn that with our children through Advent and display that with gifts on Christmas, despite their behavior, has been such a blessing.

But to answer the question from the Santa angle: We try to constantly let them know when they've been good or when we've seen them obey, once again, all year round. Rewards are great. We let them know that we're proud of them frequently, giving them verbal rewards. We give them special treats or surprises often! God speaks over and over about the rewards of obedience. If we're doing that all year round, why would we need this "time of year" to bribe with gifts or threaten with coal?

Won't your kids feel left out, if other kids are getting gifts from Santa, but they're not?

Again, we hope that we're focused on so many other things about Christ in Christmas that they're not consumed by the gifts. We hope that they're rejoicing and thankful for the greatest gift — Jesus — rather than comparing gifts. The kids were excited everyday, anticipating a new Christmas book to read or the activity for the evening. But, will they feel left out? We don't think so. Between all the visits to grandparents houses, our children were nothing short of missing out...they were showered with so many gifts wherever they went-from grandparents, aunts and uncles-gifts from people that they know that love them despite their behavior all year.

These are all of our answers, but Heather had linked to some other great, WAY more credible resources about "Santa" questions a couple weeks ago. Read here.

Our real life Santa story

The VERY next day after reading the post that I just linked to above, we were at the park. The cute, older "Have you talked with the Lord lately?" hat-wearing man that we see almost every time we're at the park was walking his usual laps. When he spotted Asher he waved real big and stopped near the playground where Asher was playing.

Cute,Old Man: Hey there big guy! Have you been a good boy this year?

{Oh, crud...I knew what was coming and I had not prepared my child even though that wise article had warned me that situations like this were bound to arise!!}

Asher: {nods his head...a little bit confused}

COM: Well, is Santa Claus going to bring you lots of toys b/c you've been so good?

A: {continues to nod...as the cute old man continues on his walk}

As we begin packing up to go home, I brief Asher on the Santa Claus situation....telling him that we can just say that we celebrate Jesus instead of Santa.

Little did I know that we'd be confronting the situation again so soon. As we're walking home Asher begins flagging the cute old man down from 30 yards away. {Oh no...what was he going to say? We hadn't even rehearsed anything! I started sweating.}

Before I could tell Asher not to say anything, he starts screaming, "No!" and shakes his head.

COM: What? {as he walks toward us...}

A: No! No, we don't celebrate Santa! We celebrate Jesus, instead. {He was very proud of himself for clearing it up.}

COM: What did he say? {looking up at me for the translation}

M: {my heart is beating really fast} He said that we don't celebrate Santa, but that we celebrate Jesus instead.

COM: {the cute old man got even cuter...} Well, that just makes my whole day. That is really great, little guy. You are right. Christmas is about Jesus, not Santa. Thanks for reminding me.

In the end, I realized that it wasn't as scary as I had dreaded and that God can even use little two year olds to remind us of the real reason for Christmas.

What about you? Do you have any Christmas traditions or advent activities that you'd like to share?