25 Days of Advent and Where did the peace go??

In the month of November, we sat down and thought about what we really wanted to do this Christmas season with our boys.  As I said yesterday, this is the first year that I feel our 4 year old can really get it.  We go to the same church I've been going to since I was about 10 and even though we are Baptist, he still does a little children's sermon (about 5 min. long) each Sunday on advent and lights the different color candles and explains what they mean.  I am ashamed to say that as a child, I was too cool to go down to the sermon and listen and therefore I probably wrote letters to my boyfriend in the pew.  And even though I'm an adult now, and he still does the same thing every year....because it's a children's sermon, I don't tend to listen.

 This last month I started thinking "Now what IS advent anyway?" and did some research on it.  An article in the HomeLife magazine I read helped in that area too.  I was excited to find out that Advent just means a time of waiting for the arrival of Christmas, more specifially the birth of Jesus.  Okay, that's easy enough....so what to do.  Over the month of November I probably went from one link to another to about a 1000 blogs or websites getting ideas of what I wanted to do.  I wish I could remember where I got each idea, but I just can't. 
So where did the peace go?
So you see, we had a plan on how to do our Christmas (described below)....a good one we thought.... and then came in the wonderful blog posts that I like to read....with a million and one ideas.  One I really liked was the Jesse Tree.  I found a Jesse Tree devotional online.  It looked a little above our 4 year old's head, so I was on the fence....then came in another one, and then another one....over the last week since Thanksgiving, I have gone from one post to another (again.)  reading about the Jesse Tree.  All seem a little above our son's head...but still such GREAT ideas!  I start getting frustrated last night because I can't decide what I want for us to do and the majority of them started THAT NIGHT.  My husband said "Relax, you can choose and if we're late...we'll just catch up".  So last night I went to bed with all the devotionals that are floating around in cyber space on my mind and trying to decide what was BEST for our family, and I remembered my post from yesterday.... Peace on Earth Challenge Day 1.    I thought, where did the peace go?  I'm trying to fit in all this WONDERFUL stuff for our family and I see no peace in it.  The 25 days of Advent as a service to Jesus will be a good for our family to do THIS year.  Next year, we can do that AND a Jesse Tree.  I don't want to bite off more than our little family can chew and then just say "Forget it!"  So I think that is where we are at this morning....  I can't promise it won't change tonight!!
Our Plan:
So we decided it would be a great idea to focus on GIVING to the person who's birthday it is anyway....Jesus! How are we giving to Jesus you ask? Well, we dig into God's word to see what Jesus wants and read Matthew 25:40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ So we're going to do 25 days of acts of service to Jesus. We're making a "Advent Calendar" using the calendar we already use....it probably won't be pretty....but I'm putting it together today (can you say procrastinator??) if you have an idea that looks better than just putting sticky notes on each day---please tell me. If not, thats what we're doing. Writing our ideas on sticky notes, putting them on the days we're doing them...and when we do calendar time, take one off and read it....and then DO it!





What we're going to do (the nice thing about sticky notes, we can change up the order if need be...in advance before the son knows about it....but looking at the calendar this is the order I THINK we'll do):

Day 1: Say a sincere, nice word to everyone you see.  Read the Christmas Story.
Day 2: Make a prayer box for Christmas Cards (put the box of cards on the kitchen table and each night pray for that family.
Day 3: Call our local food bank to ask what is needed.
Day 4: Deliver items to the food bank.
Day 5: Pick up an angel from our church's angel tree (buying a gift for a child in need)
Day 6: Meditate and pray on Matthew 25: 39-41
Day 7:  Make grandparents something.
Day 8: Dance to a praise song!
Day 9: Make a meal for someone.
Day 10: Sharpen pencils in our sanctuary.
Day 11: Help Daddy in the yard.
Day 12:  Deliver angel tree gift.
Day 13: Ponder Mary's song of praise Luke 1:45-55
Day 14: Make something for kid's Sunday School teachers.
Day 15:  Make donation to our church's Samaritan house. 
Day 16: Go through toys to give away to a child in need.
Day 17:  Invite someone over for dinner.
Day 18:  Talk about how we are supposed to be like Jesus and how we can do that.
Day 19: Pray for our preacher.
Day 20:  Do something with the toys collected.
Day 21:  Bake cookies for our neighbors.
Day 22:  Bake cookies for our mail carrier.
Day 23:  Make something for Daddy telling him how much we love him!
Day 24:  Sing Christmas songs to Jesus!
Day 25:  Read the Christmas Story and celebrate Jesus!

I plan on posting on these each day that there is something post-worthy.  And once I get my calendar done, ugly or not....I'll post it :)

Something else we are doing, is getting 25 CHRISTIAN Christmas books and wrapping them up and putting them in a basket under the tree.  Each night we will open one and read it.  The Christmas Story will be the last one the unwrap on Christmas morning.   I am going to our church library today to see if I can get my hands on 25 between the ones we have and the ones they have!  I think I'm the only person that uses to children's section of our library....so I'm sure it won't be a problem.

I would LOVE your feedback on this. Are you a little overwhelmed at what you want to add to your Christmas traditions??

Want more advent ideas?  Check out ABC and 123's link up and Tot Tuesday.





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