Advent Traditions that Make Your Heart Skip a beat

Your kids see the calendar flip to November and suddenly they are ready for the holidays, right?

It’s the same in my house.

We all love this time of year as we prepare to bundle up, snuggle in and celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior.

Every family, every home, every heart can prepare Him room; but some of us are lacking creativity. While we don’t need to be Pinterest perfect to celebrate the birth of our Lord, we can add a handful of traditions into our lives and show our children how to embrace this season with the same enthusiasm as a homeschool mom embraces that first cup of coffee.

Good News!

I’ve scoured the internet to bring you fun, creative, and wonderful ideas to help you celebrate Advent this year. Be sure to bookmark this for later. And take it slow. It really only takes 1-3 activities to help your holidays stand out as you celebrate JESUS!

7 Wonderful Ways to Celebrate Advent Together

1. DIY Advent calendar

Advent calendars are special delight for kids. They are meant to celebrate each day in a small way as we count down the days to Christmas.

They can be as simple as printing a calendar and adding designs each day:

Or making a Paper Countdown Chain, like like this one from Jim Elzerman.

DIY Advent Bags are fun too! Just gather 24 bags and fill them with little treats to be opened each day.

Yes, it’s also ok to buy a keepsake Advent calendar too.

advent traditions — My favorite advent calendar

I know. It’s not a nativity, it has a little santa, and there are no wise men or donkeys.

I love it anyway.

2. Advent Music

Introduce a new Christmas song every day of Advent! This is the EASIEST tradition to start this year! You can create your own playlist, print out the words, dig in tot he history behind the lyrics, or just listen.

3. Advent Printables

Oh, these are the easiest things to incorporate into your advent celebrations. Click, print, and be that cool mom!

I created this Advent and Jesse Tree Printables Packet a few years ago and each year I add a few new activities. The great news? Once you grab your copy, you can simply re-download each year!

These advent acts of kindness cards from Mum in the Madhouse are worth the ink!

4. Advents Acts of Kindness

Spread the JOY of Christmas by blessing others! It’s always time to be kind, but it’s especially fun to enlist kids as secret agents on a mission to bless others

Write a letter to a loved one, or a soldier over seas
Bring gifts to the local women and children’s shelter
Make Cookies and give them to a neighbor
Participate in Operation Christmas Child
Trick or Treat for canned foods and deliver them to the local food bank
Complete one Act of Kindness a day

5. Advent Crafts

Make Handmade Christmas cards
Make salt dough ornaments

Homemade Christmas Ornaments made with Salt Dough - Only 3 Ingredients! — Salt dough recipe by Sugar Dish Me

Make thumbprint Snowmen Ornaments!

Thumbprint Snowprint (2) — You gotta try this adorable craft by Family Style Schooling

Make handprint tree skirt
Make foot print Penguins

christmas-jar-luminaries-craft — Luminaries Craft by Crafty Morning

6. Advent Games!

The holidays are filled with plenty of opportunity to overstuff your calendar with fun stuff that drives you crazy. Make time to sit at the table, or around the fire and enjoy each other’s company and you play a game together

Advent Scattergories

Learn biblical history and geography as you play Portals and Prophets. No biblical knowledge required, so you can play with your entire family whether they know the Bible yet, or not!

7. Advent Books

The day after Christmas, I bring out wrapping paper and gift wrap my favorite Christmas Picture books for the following year. Then, those books get packed away until the following Advent Season.

I am one of those people who decorates for Christmas BEFORE Thanksgiving, and my kids LOVE seeing those books get nestled under the tree.

Each day, a child gets to pick a book to be unwrapped and enjoyed together. It’s one of our FAVORITE traditions!

I love picture books in general, but there’s something magical about a Christmas story, a child in footed pajamas and a mug of something warm and wonderful.

6 last Minute Advent Ideas

Yes, it’s time to plan for advent season. With a few supplies, some paper and ink, and a few ideas, your family will delight together as you add new Advent traditions into your home.

Oh, Come let us adore Him…

More Bible Studies for Kids:

My personal statement of faith:

I believe the Bible to be the inspired, the only infallible, authoritative Word of God.

I believe that there is one God, eternally existent in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

I believe in the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, in His virgin birth, in His sinless life and atoning death through His shed blood, in His bodily resurrection, in His ascension to the right hand of the Father, and in His personal return in power and glory.

I believe “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” and that we are saved by faith in Jesus.

My favorite Bible teachers are my husband (Craig Sayler), Pastor Jon Courson, Pastor Chuck Smith, CH Spurgeon.

Bekki Sayler is the creator of A Better Way to Homeschool, author of Homeschooling From the Inside Out, and homeschooling mom of five rambunctious sons. Yep. She says it’s as crazy as it sounds!

Bekki is most thankful for the love and support of her husband of almost 30 years. When she’s not dodging nerf bullets or stepping over piles of Legos, she creates classes, printables, books, and resources to encourage Christian homeschool moms to trust the Lord in their journey. Her heart’s passion is to share the truth that it is possible to educate your kids using God’s word as a guide while focusing on the holy trinity of homeschooling: heart, attitude, and character.