Advent Planning

I have been trying to work out how I want to share some of the traditions in our family that we celebrate each year in during the Advent and Christmas season. These are so tied up with our Home school lessons for this season that it is hard to separate the two.

As I think about these I have been a bit over whelmed with writing this post. So I think the best way to tackle it is to do a bit at a time.

We will be using as our guide this year (each year we try to do something different for the Advent study) ~
A Blessed Christmas: A Unit Study Approach to Studying the Symbols of Christmas we have the old version of this one. The link is to the new er version and it is FREE.
We will incorporate it with this version of Christmas Symbols Unit Study once again our version is the older one but the link is for the new improved version. It also is FREE.

These two units will form the backbone of our daily studies.
Along with these we intend on reading the Kit series from American Girl. We have in the past looked at one of the American girls and the time period they are in. This year Kit ( during the depression) seemed a logical choice.

We will also read The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. Our children love me to read this aloud EVERY year. Last year I refused so they insist that this year they have to have it.
Each evening we will read Tabitha's Travels. We take it in turns to read one of the three books in this series but Tabatha is by far the favourite.

Each day we will place an ornament on the Jesse Tree. We have two of these ~ a tree with Sculpy figures, that Eden made last year or the wall hanging one with felt pinned on ornaments I made years ago.We will also read this book along with one of the various daily readings plans we have for the Jesse Tree.

I also plan on reading The Christmas Mystery, another countdown book.

Everyone has to choose for reading during Advent one Saint book and one Christmas Chapter book to read and to share about once Christmas is over.

Of course as we are HUGE picture book fans so we will gather some, well quite a lot of books into baskets and read these each day as well. I will eventually list on the side bars, some to most of our picture books. Over the years we have developed quite a library on these.
Another count down we have is the Advent countdown. A Felt Christmas tree with pockets I made when Kynan was a baby, it is looking a little worn, but tradition says it is used every year.
Last year I also made a countdown of little stockings and I will fill this countdown calender with vouchers inside for each day.
Another tradition is the O Antiphon House. Originally I was this on Elizabeth's blog and Braedon made the box for me from scratch along with the cubes. I painted and glued and Autumn drew on the cubes for me.
One of our oldest traditions is the Advent Wreath. This particular one Stephen made for us when we moved into this house. As it has large cathedral ceilings and we hang it from them it needed to be big and stable.
It is made from a wooden crosspiece and I decorated it with a wreath and ribbons. we screw the candles on the four corners and place our white Christ Candle on the bookcase to be lit on Christmas day after Midnight Mass.

AS this is long enough I will be posting more on the feast days we celebrate and other activities we have planned soon.

Blessings,