Celebrating Advent

Guest post by Lindsay from The Oil Aisle.

I love to celebrate Advent.

The word advent simply means “coming” or “arrival.” The focus of the entire season of advent is the anticipation and the celebration of the birth of Jesus, and the anticipation of the return of Christ in his second advent.

I started an “advent calendar” with my son, Carsen in December when he was 19 months old. He really didn’t have a clue that year or the next. But now that he is 3.5 years old he has a much better understanding of the different activities we do each day.

Each December 1st, we start our advent season by reading The Christmas Story in The Jesus Storybook Bible. We pull out our nativity and talk through the story of Jesus’ birth.

Throughout the next four weeks we baked cookies for our neighbors, sang and danced to Christmas music, made Christmas cards for family and friends, decorated the house, made hot chocolate, built a snowman (we live in Omaha), baked stollen with Opa, and built a gingerbread house.

But this year I decided to add a few more activities that centered more around volunteering. I love serving and helping bring positive change to my community and want to pass that on to my son.

We rang the Salvation Army Bell, sorted clothes at Assure Women’s Center, and packed lunches at the Open Door Mission. Carsen has throughly enjoyed serving and at each place they have loved seeing such a young child giving of his time.

My heart is full of anticipation for the coming of Jesus as we enter our last week of advent. But I’m also excited to continue with our advent activities which include roasting marshmallows, visiting Santa, wrapping presents for our family members, staying up late to drive and look at Christmas lights, taking someone a coffee, and opening his Christmas Eve box.

Celebrating the birth of Jesus through advent is a great way to posture our hearts to the “reason for the season.”

Show kindness.

Be Joy-filled.

Act childlike.

It’s not too late to let this advent season mark you with a passion for Jesus and spreading His Love and Joy to those around you.