We’re in the midst of Advent season, and in our house, that equals a couple things. First, Ella has a little chocolate advent calendar that she opens every morning. It’s supposed to serve as a countdown to Christmas, with a wee piece of chocolate behind every paper flap, but I made the mistake of showing it to her before Advent actually began, meaning we are a few days ahead. I think today she opened number 15. We may have a problem when we get to the last piece of chocolate and it’s not yet Christmas.
Second, I like to take time with the kids to do some kind of Advent reading every night. That’s the good Lutheran girl in me, I suppose. Last year we found simple readings on Pinterest. Then, last month, I saw someone post a photo of Ann Voskamp’s book Unwrapping the Greatest Gift on Instagram and decided to order it for our family. We’ve been loving it! It’s a beautifully illustrated, hardcover book with scripture, a story, and family questions and activity ideas for each day of Advent.
We would love to share this book with you! You can enter to win your own copy of Unwrapping the Greatest Gift: A Family Celebration of Christmas by Ann Voskamp by completing the steps in the form below. Start by leaving a comment about what your favorite family activity is during the Christmas season and then clicking in the giveaway box that you left a comment. (You might find the comment section up near the title of this post, depending on how you opened this page.) The giveaway will be open until Sunday night at midnight and I’ll announce the winner on Monday. That way I can mail the book out in time to read a few of the last sections before Christmas. This book will be a beautiful addition to your family Christmas traditions!
Disclaimer: I was not compensated in any way to talk about or giveaway this book. The opinions in this post are entirely my own.
My favorite family activity during the Christmas season is baking cookies. My husband’s work puts on an event every year where we all meet at a church and bake cookies. Someone else does all the prep work and clean up and we get to take home lots of different kinds of cookies! It doesn’t get any easier than that!
I love this idea. We do a little Advent reading every night, as well, and a big reading on Sundays. We don’t follow any specific religion in our house, but I love the “light in a time of darkness” and Lillian, who just turned four, really relates to the baby Jesus and is fascinated by His story. I feel like this year is the first year that it’s interesting to her. I fill in with some Hanukkah stories, too, because part of my family is Jewish and I feel like she needs to understand this tradition, as well. 🙂
When I was little, because my birthday is so close to Christmas (the 20th), my parents wouldn’t take me to see the Nutcracker ballet. Every year we’d go and I swear every year it just gets better and better! I’m still absolutely mesmerized by it!
We love setting up the Christmas tree and then watching the movie “Elf!”
Our favorite Christmas tradition is volunteering with the Salvation Army and ringing bells at our local supermarket
Our favorite activity to do is read Christmas books by the Christmas tree or go look at Christmas lights in our neighborhood in our pjs!
Spending time doing our Adornaments and making cookies
Spending time doing our Adornaments and making cookies with family, children and now grandchildren
Stopping by from Christian Blogging Moms on G+. Our kids love their advent calendars and driving around to visit large light displays that are local to us. Looking forward to poking around your blog a little and learning more about you. Blessings!
We love setting up our nativity scene and talking about the Christmas story!
Love this. Was just listening to a conference call with Ann Voskamp last week and they spoke about this book. So many fun things we try to do during the Christmas season. My favorite may be simply going to church Christmas Eve and then opening presents with the kiddos in our jammies by the fire Christmas Day morning 🙂
Although our family has several Christmas traditions that we love, our newest one is our favorite. For the past two years we have opened our homes, hearts, and lives during Christmas and hosted an orphan. This year we are hosting two sisters – the oldest has Down Syndrome. It has truly changed our lives and God has done so much! My four children are all on board and love it- we can’t imagine spending another Christmas without one of these special.children with us!
I have seen this all over the place, would love to start this tradition with my family. As for what we enjoy now, reading Christmas books by the tree and decorating the inside of our house with Christmas lights. Thanks for your spirit of giving!
Our favorite activity is to be with and spend time with all of our out of town family, my siblings will be coming form California, Chicago, and Minneapolis this year=)
Some of my favorite traditions are Bell ringing as a family for the Salvation Army and decorating our home for the holidays the weekend of our anniversary.
My favorite so far is reading Christmas stories before bedtime. I check out 15-20 books from the library & wrap them up, so each night Ruby has one to unwrap & read!
We love to light a candle in the evenings and do some Advent reading… So cosy and special!!
Last year we started a tradition of making challah and eating it before our Christmas dinner while reading through a liturgy on Jesus and bread (coming from Bethlehem (the House of Bread) and being the Bread of Life). We also use Ann Voskamp’s Jesse tree, although we don’t have the book.
Pete, Becca and I have recently moved to our own home after living with his parents for a couple of years. So we are fully enjoying discovering our own family traditions! It’s been fun (and sometimes challenging!) to merge our family traditions and also to decide what is best for our little family. We start listening to Christmas music whenever we start getting the Christmas itch, which this year was WAY before Thanksgiving… We love putting up our tree and nativity set and I’m looking forward to baking some cookies this weekend, yum!
We love decorating the tree together and doing the advent calendar. My in-laws send little gifts to open daily.
Singing under the Christmas tree!
My favorite traditions are watching the same Christmas movies year after year and going to Christmas Eve service with the whole family followed by some Chriatmas light looking 🙂