Advent Wreath Resource

On Sunday night we were invited to friends' church for their family Advent event, which focused on getting families prepared to lead the advent wreath lighting with a small devotional, 3 excellent crafts for the kids and a pizza supper. It was wonderful!

The key reason we are using an advent wreath is to focus our hearts and minds on the true meaning of Christmas. So often it is easy to get caught up in the craziness of this season that we lose track of the important stuff. The WHO, the WHY!

At breakfast time we are sticking with our usual Bible reading of one chapter of the Gospels.

At lunch time, once the table is cleared, we are lighting the appropriate candle(s) and using this guide. (lest you think we are spending boat loads of time, yesterday the candle wax barely started to melt before we were done and blowing it out as we headed for naps!)

And at supper we are lighting the advent wreath and reading from our devotional Good Tidings of Great Joy: The Birth of Jesus the Messiah (William Barclay Library).

It took us until Wednesday to figure this out, but at least we did figure it out and we are moving forward this year. I feel quite victorious after a few years of good intentions not paying off and my efforts being thwarted.

Check out this post for a bit more on how they do their advent wreath. (This is where I found the link to the guide we are using.)

Already I am finding that this is easy to do because the planning is done, we just read for that day, it is not taking a lot of extra time, it is allowing us to bring scripture to the lunch table (a goal we had been working to), and it is truly helping to keep us focused on Jesus and not the baking/wrapping/mailing lists!

If you do not have an advent wreath this year, let me encourage you to put one together with what you have, it is such fun and so encouraging! Just be sure to keep your candle wicks trimmed for safety! :-)

So, who else has an Advent Wreath this year? What do you do?

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After I finished this post up I read Ann's post called What Advent is Really all About, good reading.

And then I found this post called What is Advent?