Our ADVENTures: The Daily Regulars
November 15, 2021
By Jen Stanbro
Here’s a list of what we do every morning in December with an explanation of each. This list changes from year to year and it’s somewhat fluid. I love the plans we make, but I also hold them loosely. Some days we miss some things and that’s fine. I think it makes kids more resilient, flexible, and ultimately happier when we allow real life to do what real life does without getting our pants in a knot. Anyways, this little list is what we shoot for (and mostly hit) every day.
Christmas Music: I created and continue to curate a playlist on Spotify with all of our favorite Christmas music. Click above to listen and follow, if you like. I try to have it lightly playing in the background throughout the day, as the kids are beginning to come downstairs, during breakfast time or chore time, while we’re doing creative activities, or having family game time in the evening. It simply adds a gentle auditory ambiance to our December days.
Light Up the Christmas Tree: Our Christmas Tree is lit from first thing in the morning till right before we hit the hay. We received this Hallmark Northpole Treeluminator toy from my mom many years ago and the kids absolutely love it! You push down on the pump arm, hear a simulated powering up sound effect, and VOILA! the Christmas Tree magically lights up! The kids fight over it, so we have literally had to create a schedule for whose turn it is to light the Christmas tree each day. Of course, you don’t need one of these to make it fun. Maybe you could connect to Alexa or the like. I’ve also seen remote control kits. Heck, you could decorate the wall around your light switch or decorate around the socket you plug the main cord into. The point is to make it a thing!
Open Our Advent Calendar Door: Behind each door I put a little card that reveals the day’s special activity. Who gets to open the door each day? That’s also on our ‘whose-turn-is-it-to-do-what’ schedule. For the cards, I simply downloaded some free Christmas fonts and created text boxes with borders. Print on cardstock and you’re good to go!
Unwrap Our Christmas Book: I’m so sorry, I don’t remember who I got this idea from originally, though I’ve seen it in several blogs since. The first year I discovered this cute idea, I made a book list from the recommendations and gave it to my mom and my mother-in-law. That Christmas, they generously stocked our Christmas library and I set the books aside for the following year. I buy one or two more each year to add to our collection. Every December I wrap each book (or at least intend to…some years, I haven’t had the energy, so I didn’t. But the spirit of the activity is the same). Every morning, I put one book out. The littles take turns each day, unwrapping. Then they get their story-time cuddle friends (we call them our Bubbas, I’ll have to share that story sometime) and read aloud together.
Online Interactive Advent Calendar: Many years ago, we received a Jacquie Lawson online interactive advent calendar as a gift from a friend. I was surprised at how sweetly it captured the simplicity and wonder of the season. I’ve purchased one every year since and it continues to delight my kids, young and old. Here’s the link!
Light Candle & Read Tabitha’s Travels: We began two years ago with the first book in the Advent series written by Arnold Ytreeide: “Jotham’s Journey: A Storybook for Advent.” When I purchased it, I remember thinking it would be a lovely, quaint little story that added a sweet read-aloud time to our daily ADVENTures. I quickly realized that this was a thrilling historical fiction series, with sometimes intense and suspenseful plot twists, deep, beautiful characters, meaningful life lessons, and historical references interwoven so masterfully, I had to remind myself that it was fiction. The daily devotions were wonderful, (I revised slightly here or there, but not often). If a scene seemed to be a little ‘much’ for my more sensitive kid, I just paraphrased (which the author recommends). Overall it was a really rich experience that had us all wowing several times during the exciting, revelatory conclusion. The following year, we read the next book in the series, “Bartholomew’s Passage,” and reveled at Ytreeide’s ability to bring us on another roller coaster ride with a new character who tied marvelously into both the Christmas story as well as Jotham’s story. This year, we’re excited to embark on our third ADVENTure with Arnold Ytreeide in “Tabitha’s Travels!”
Each day’s reading and devotional has the optional accompaniment of lighting a candle on the advent wreath. We don’t have one, so we just light our scented candles. Lighting candles makes everything cozier!
What God Wants for Christmas: I’ve really enjoyed using this as an alternative to the Elf on the Shelf experience. As an alternative to the theme that good behavior merits gifts, there is the theme that at Christmastime, God gave us the best gift of all (Jesus), and the best gift we can give to God is our hearts. Each day, I hide one of the included gift boxes and the kids go on a little hunt for it. Each box holds a nativity character figurine and comes with a corresponding narrative poem written from the perspective of that character. There are seven gift boxes in total, so we add this activity to our daily regulars in the final week before Christmas.
That’s what we’re doing this year! What will your daily regulars be?