Since I want to share this Advent season with y'all but am trying to be a bit more present with my family (instead of in 50-million different places), I am taking the easy route and letting someone else talk about Advent for me. This is a post written last year by one of my dearest friends where she shares some really awesome ideas for how to make Advent meaningful for your whole family, including the little ones. I hope you enjoy this post as much as I did. (Additional thoughts from me in italics.)
My friends Rachel and Farrah have both asked for ideas about doing Advent with little ones. We are just figuring this out for ourselves, so I am not sure how much help I will be. I definitely recommend searching the blogosphere and internet for Catholic and Anglican family ideas. But here is what did last year and what we hope to do this year. Don't get overwhelmed. We aren't doing all of this. It's best to start small and focus on a couple of things. Advent Wreath
I definitely recommend having one of these. You could get crafty and have your little ones help you make it, or you could buy one. I made one out of fake garland and red berries and nestled short candle holders in it. Put it in a central place in your home, either the dining room table or coffee table. (We have one felt one Lucas can play with and one with real candles that we keep up out of reach.) We tended to do our Advent devotions after dinner in the living room, so ours sat on the coffee table. We may have to change that this year, since Hobbes will not be likely to keep his hands off of it. Wherever you put it, light the candle(s) every night during devotions or dinner. Calvin was so excited to get to Christmas and be able to light the "Jesus candle" in the middle. It is a great, tangible way to anticipate Christmas.
Books and Toys
I have heard that the Jotham's Journey trilogy is great for Advent. Unfortunately, they are out of print and expensive
to buy. If you find them cheap, get me a set too! We have really loved this book. It is great for devotional time or for breakfast reading. Each day has a door you can open with a bit of the Christmas story. The illustrations are beautiful.We also have a plastic nativity that we picked up at a garage sale. We leave that set up under out tree for the kids to play with. (Lucas loves to arrange all the characters of our nativity set. It is a good tool to ge them talking about the story of Christ's birth and make it interactive. We also have a Fischer-Price one that he loves so much that it never got put away after last Christmas.) There are lots of options out there. I think you can even get a stuffed Advent wreath. I am hoping to find some more good Christmas board books, one to introduce every few days of Advent. Devotions
This depends on the age of your children. Last year, we used the Advent book for the boys and then did some readings our church had prepared for us. The boys are used to sitting through a decent amount of reading at night during devotions. We also used Advent hymns. If you really look, you can find quite a few. Focus on a couple that you can teach the kids. We did a different verse of O Come, O Come, Emmanuel each night. (There are about a gazillion.) This year, we are doing a Jesse Tree with scripture readings. I ordered these books, and I am planning to eventually make these ornaments. This year we may just do ornaments cut out of paper! Waiting For Christmas
This is the most difficult part of Advent in our culture. Everything around us is telling us to get up the lights, decorate the tree, start singing carols. A radio station here is already playing Christmas Carols 24 hours a day! Like I said, we sing Advent hymns until Christmas Eve. We put up our tree and stockings before Christmas, but we decorate the tree on Christmas Eve or shortly before, depending on where we will be Christmas day. We put up the stable for our nativity and bring the figures out slowly. I think this year we will have Mary and Joseph travel through the house, set the shepherds up across the room, and let the wise men travel (hide them around the house) from Christmas to Epiphany. Baby Jesus never comes out until Christmas.
The Twelve Days of Christmas
This is probably my favorite part of Advent and Christmas. We don't give our children a big gift bash on Christmas. We try to reserve this day for family. This year we are really looking forward to doing Christmas morning at home with just our stocking gifts. Of course, we can't avoid the gift insanity that happens when visiting grandparents! We do give our children gifts. We do mostly small gifts over the 12 days of Christmas, one opened each morning. We will do a couple of bigger gifts in there, with the biggest on Epiphany. This give the kids time to enjoy each present and makes Christmas Day more about celebrating Jesus' birth and being with family.
Rest and Relax
This is a lot of information. I am overwhelmed just looking at it! Take a few things that will work for you and go with them. There is a lot of information out there that can help. I would love to hear your ideas about what you are doing. Things will change for us every year as we figure out what works for our family. Mostly I love how Advent allows me to prepare for Christmas in a less-frenzied way. I try to get most of my shopping done before Advent begins, and I also try to minimize my Christmas party activities.
P.S.~ Was that helpful? Let me know if you use any of her ideas or if you have questions. Here are some other links that I enjoy and use too:
Other great Advent-ish resources:
Peace to you!
This is Lucas' interpretation of the Nativity, complete with Thomas the Tank Engine, Sir Topham Hat, the Little People, a random robot, and the characters from Madagascar 2. He created this scene yesterday on his train table and then proudly announced that "everyone should come see baby Jesus. He is such a good baby!" When I asked him what he meant that baby Jesus is a good baby, he replied "he smiles a lot and doesn't spit up and obeys his mommy Mary." Sounds reasonable to me. Trying to use this as a starting block for teachable conversation, I asked Lucas who he thought Jesus came to earth to save. "He came to see everyone. Jesus is friends with Thomas and Alex the Lion and ...." "Did Jesus come to save you and me?" I asked. "Oh, yes, Mommy. Jesus came to save everyone." And that is such good news. 
We joined some friends for a fun morning of gingerbread houses and a visit from Santa. Lucas surprised me and sat on Santa's lap. He asked Santa for "Thomas the Tank Engine" at my prodding (so cute that he said the whole name) and has since been asking me regularly what Santa is bringing him for Christmas. Hubby and I agree that there must be a balance when bringing Santa into the Christmas picture. It is hard to avoid since the images and songs and books, etc... are all around. And we don't really want to avoid it either since that is a fun part of childhood Christmas. Lucas loves to read about Santa and talk about him and he seemed to enjoy meeting him. But when asked what we celebrate at Christmas, he can say without hesitation that it is Jesus' birthday. He is learning about Mary and Joseph and the shepherds and the whole story. And we are trying to teach him that although there are lots of other fun things about this time of year, the real significance comes in the real story. And he gets it, or at least is starting to.
