Christmas 4: Family Advent Sundays

Jesus and Christmas part 4 -

Family Advent Sundays

Guest post by Ali Datson

There are three ways to approach culture, including Christmas.  Receive it as neutral.  Reject as bad.  Or seek to redeem it for good.  In the following posts I have asked people about their experiences. 

How have they created new family traditions or redeem exisiting ones so to make much of Jesus?

Here's one example of a clever family tradition that does just that - seeks to redeem Christmas in creative, fun and hospitable ways.  A great way to engage friends and children who might not go to church.

Ali and her husband Mark have two teenage children, the oldest about to start University.  For the last 15+ years Ali and Mark have held 'Advent Sundays' as a family, seeking to redeem Christmas by making much of preparing for Jesus' arrival as a family.  We had the pleasure of their generousity a year or so ago - our young boys loved it and it is something we want to experiment with too.  It began when they first moved to Africa in the 1980s.  They are now back in the UK.

I asked Ali if she'd tell us a little of how this came about. 

"While we were living in West Africa, serving with Wycliffe Bible translators we had different experiences of Christmas. Our first Christmas overseas was as newly weds on a short term assignment in Ivory Coast. The lack of commercialism was very welcome, but not having our own children (yet) we found that Christmas day was almost no different to any other day – just an even longer than usual church service!

When we returned to West Africa as a family (kids 1 and 3 years old) we wanted to make Christmas special.  I had spent a few years of my own childhood growing up in Germany and so the tradition of celebrating Advent was something I had experienced. We decided to do our own Christmas ‘build up’ which would be Jesus centered so that when on Christmas day it seemed to be all about presents and food we didn’t feel the added pressure to try and keep reminding the kids what it was really all about!

Our Advent Sundays involved inviting another family for Christmas treats (I had to make all my own as there were no cakes or mince pies in the shops!) in the afternoon.

I would get the kids doing a food craft (painting biscuits, decorating a gingerbread house, making bread dough snowmen, marzipan fruit, ......).

We would then read a part of the Christmas story from the Bible stories book (letting the kids read as they grew older).

They each got to unwrap a nativity piece to go into the nativity and the oldest would light the advent candle(s). Depending on their age we would also talk about what each candle represented.

Then the kids watched a Christmas movie and the adults chatted. We’d have a simple tea (soup and sandwiches) together before saying goodbye. 

It was a always a lovely time;  being with friends, thinking about the Christmas story and lots of Christmas goodies."

How could having a Jesus-centred build up to Christmas like Ali and Mark add to your Christmas experience?

Check out parts 1,2 and 3 of the series for more ideas, and look out for more guest posts coming.

Part One - Jesus & Christmas: Thinking early, planning well

Part Two - Who is Santa Claus?

Part Three - Redeeming Christmas: How today's normal was yesterdays radical