Advent Traditions

I'm sure that our family doesn't celebrate Advent....waiting....as some families do, but it is a special tradition that we look forward to in our home.  We always start by having a child light our advent candles.  We light all of them and I know their color and lighting is supposed to have significance, but we just enjoy seeing them all lit every night.
 

Then we usually sing, "Mary's Star Path" while Nater usually moves our wooden Mary and Joseph to the next star and places the now empty star up in the "sky" behind our nativity scene. 

 

The song we sing goes like this:

On the golden star path walking, 

Mother Mary travels far,

Brings to us the light of heaven,

Brighter than the brightest star.

Moonbeams shine for Mother Mary,

Bells of heaven sweetly ring,

All the earth is hushed to listen,

When the angels' voices sing.

Soft her footsteps on the starpath,

Stardust sprinkled in her way,

Mary brings to us the Christ child,

Brighter than the brightest day.

After that  we then do our Jesse Advent Devotional by Ann VosKamp, which means someone reads from our bible the passage assigned for that day, then I read the devotional that goes with it.  My poor family, often has be wait as I read because so often I am moved to tears by her words.

 Then Maddie or Nate usually hang the Jesse Ornament for that day on our wreath.  

 On Sundays only, we read a chapter from Mary's First Christmas, then we blow out the candles and pray.

 Every year our advent time has looked a little different, but I think this is to stay....I've really gotten the emphasis this year that advent is waiting in hope....looking to how Israel waited in hope for the Messiah and how it was also meant for us.  

I read this quote today by Dietrich Bonhoeffer and thought it describes advent well. 

“A prison cell, in which one waits, hopes - and is completely dependent on the fact that the door of freedom has to be opened from the outside, is not a bad picture of Advent." 

Thank you Jesus for opening my prison cell door!