Slice of Heaven

Advent

I have seen many posts lately about Advent...my good friend Sarah has a link on her blog to some wonderful Advent ideas, many of which we will use this year. For our family, we have traditionally used Advent as a time to keep our focus on Christ during the Christmas season. It is so easy to get caught up in busyness and activities, so the daily Bible reading centered around the Christmas story, and some activity that encourages us to think beyond ourselves really helps us to celebrate Christmas in a meaningful way.

We started one new advent activity this year, and I wasn't really sure how it would go over with the kids. Though it has only been 2 days, I am quite impressed. The idea is called "Stocking Stuffers". The rules are this: Each person has to write one note each day, and you have to rotate to whom you write. Write a note that is encouraging to one of the members of our family, fold it and put it in their stocking. The note can be short or long, and can say anything you want, as long as it is encouraging. Christmas morning, when stockings are opened, each person will have a handful of notes to read from each other.

The reason we decided to do this activity this year was because our children struggle (and oftentimes we do as parents) with finding positive things about each other. It is so easy to focus on the negative. Instead, they will be looking for those little things about each other which they love and will be writing them down.

So, as I said, I wasn't sure how it would go over. This morning, without any prompting, after breakfast, each of the kids got out their little slip of paper from the basket and wrote their note, and slipped the notes into the stockings on the mantle.