Are you ready for Advent? Here’s a checklist of eight Advent practices you can do with your family, plus a list of important feasts and holidays during Advent.
8 practical ways to get ready for Advent
Thanksgiving and Advent readiness
Catholic mom Sarah Reinhard writes, “The world in mid-November is gray and dull, sometimes smattered with snow and sometimes with piles of leaves. There’s a nip in the air, both inside and out, and the days are short enough that it’s sometimes a struggle to get out of bed. I usually face this time of year with a certain rebellious denial. It happens, every single year, and there’s never a surprise. Thanksgiving comes, just as it always does, and Advent leads to Christmas, all the same. This year, I’d like to focus on the gratitude of the family feast and on the silence of the December journey through Advent.” Read Sarah’s plan online.
Pray the O Antiphons with your children
The O Antiphons are seven verses in the Liturgy of the Hours that contain powerful pleas for the coming of the Lord. They are chanted or recited during Vespers on the last seven days of Advent. Find this post online for each days antiphon, and listen to a hymn, O Come Emmanuel.
Have yourself a drama-free Christmas
Can you have a drama-free Christmas? Ever since Cory Bussee’s mom and dad passed, family holidays have taken on a very weird flavor. He and his wife, and his siblings and their spouses and kids, all struggle with family identity now that the keepers of their shared history and traditions are gone. So, the family decided to host a “Drama-Free Christmas.” To pull it off, they made three, simple rules. Discover what they are online.
“Are we there yet?”
Advent is the long-distance trip of holidays, the season of children repeatedly asking, “Are we there yet?!” It’s filled with great anticipation and excitement, but it can also be filled […]
