Celebrating Advent by Cameron

In this blog post, I wanted to tell you my view of Advent from a twelve-year-old's standpoint. We know from experience that it's easy to get caught up with the parties, festivities, and whatnot and forget Christ, the reason for the season. Over the years we've come up with some ways to help us prepare for Christ's coming, and I'll share four of them here.

1. Fasting

During Advent, we abstain from sweets, with the exception of hospitality, Sundays, and feast days.  If we are offered something, it is rude to decline. That means no Christmas cookies, holiday treats, and no type of sweets, unless, say, we were at a friend's house and they offered us a cookie. That is allowed. This also makes us enjoy treats when we do get them so much more.

2. Music

As a family, we try to sing only Advent songs (songs about Jesus's coming). Now, the occasional Christmas carol is fine, but we try to keep the singing focused on our waiting for Jesus. Some Advent favorites of ours are "O Come O Come Emmanuel", "Come Thou Long Expected Jesus", "Drop Your Dew Ye Clouds of Heaven", "Come Thou Font", "The King of Glory", etc.

3. Prayer

For Advent, we started doing a holy hour every day before Mass, and a rosary. I personally enjoy it as my wake-up time with Jesus. It is really nice to have our holy hour, and then fade into Mass.

4. Read Aloud 

We also do a read-aloud called "Ishtar's Odyssey", which I really enjoy. It helps prepare for Christmas, and it is also very adventurous, with a lot of cliffhangers. It is from a series that also has Lent read alouds.  I would highly suggest it. Hopefully, you may be inspired to come up with your own ideas to prepare for Christmas! I sincerely hope that you have a great Advent and a Merry Christmas.