Our Advent Calender

When my niece was little, I purchased an Advent calendar for her.  It was the kind with little pockets and she would move a little felt mouse from pocket to pocket every day counting down til Christmas.  The little pockets had treats in them... one treat for every day.  This is what an advent calendar was to me.  We have never done an advent calendar in our family.  I thought the idea sounded like fun and was eye-ing an advent calendar at the store and thinking I might purchase one for my kids.  In the end, I opted not to.  You see, one day we were riding in the car and the children were talking about what they would like to get for Christmas.  All of a sudden, I realized that I hadn't once heard them say that they were anxious to GIVE anything.  Now, my children really are not ungrateful and they were just being normal kids at Christmas time, I think, but I wanted something more for them.  I wanted them to see Christ in this time of year.  I wanted them to understand the sacrifice He made in coming to earth to serve and to save.
With that in mind and a little inspiration from the friend of a friend, I put together our family's first Advent calendar.  I didn't fill every day with activity but the goal was to put my children in a different frame of mind... to give them a different focus for this holiday season.
I thought I'd list what we are doing in the hope of inspiring your own holiday season.

• Make and send Christmas cards to our Compassion International sponsor children
• We chose to donate cash and a gift basket to our local Shelter from the Storm by offering to work for friends to earn a donation.  We chose Shelter from the Storm to honor the kids' godmother whom they lost to domestic violence.  We composed a letter and emailed it to our local friends asking for their consideration.
• The Angel Tree.  JCPenney and the Salvation Army have teamed up with an online Angel Tree.  The kids chose the gender and age of the child they wanted to purchase for and JCPenney offered many items at a drastically reduced price.  Both of my kids independently felt that they would best serve their "angel" buy buying her pajamas (yup, they both chose girls!).  I thought that was sweet.
• Serving you.  The kids have one day per week that they serve someone else in the family.  Serve Mom day is coming up on Saturday and I really can't wait! :)
• We are preparing to gift a soldier (my cousin Artie) for the holiday reminding my kids that there are people out there fighting to protect their way of life and the right to celebrate.
• Since we have an abundance of books and videos at our house, we will be going through our surplus and donating some of those items to the library.
• My husband works for Union Pacific and it is our plan to descend on their morning meeting with holiday baskets of homemade gifts and treats for them.  These men are so important to us and we love them like family.  We'll also be handing out invitations to a casual Christmas party/open house.  These plans are still a little sketchy to me as I would love for the party to be filled with ways they can serve our guests and gift them as well... any ideas that you have will be great!
• We love to spend our tithe money in creative ways and one of our favorites is to shop Samaritan's Purse online Christmas catalog.  You can purchase blankets, chicks, Bibles, goats... almost anything you can think of that helps families in poor countries learn to be self supportive and ministers to these people body, mind and soul.
• I love this idea:  The kids are going to write a thank-you note to a person who has made a difference in their life.  I can just imagine the look on a person's face who receives that as a Christmas gift this year... the knowledge that they affected someone's life in a positive way for a lifetime.  What better gift is there??
• We plan to offer free babysitting to one (or more) of our friends so they can go Christmas shopping.
• We will go through the kids' toys and donate our many "extras" to the office where foster children have family visits.
• We plan to go to the "Living Nativity" for the first time.  I'm told it's amazing and what a tangible way to teach the Christmas Story!
• We also plan on reading the Christmas Story from the Bible and watching the movie "The Nativity" as well as baking a birthday cake for Jesus.

I'm so excited to see what my kids have learned by the end of this month.  I'm hoping to see a humbleness that is currently lacking and maybe the beginnings of an eye toward serving others.  The real challenge, tho, is to make this an on-going project.  Although it's a great lesson to learn during the holidays, I want the kids to continue this attitude of service throughout the year.  I hope that I can lead by example as well as direct their paths.