Advent Family Devotions
Keeping Christ in Christmas
ADVENT FAMILY DEVOTIONS...
Keeping Christ in Christmas
by Marilyn Williams
© 2001 Marilyn Williams
© 2007 SBS Publishing
© 2008 Lulu Publishing
ISBN 978-0-557-02786-6
Every effort has been made to provide accurate information and proper acknowledgement
to all sources of information and quotations.
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without written permission.
For permission and further information:
Marilyn Williams
P.O. Box 302112
Escondido, Ca. 92030
www.MarilynWilliams.com
Advent begin tomorrow; get ready for your Advent Devotions! One will come to each day from tomorrow through Christmas. Enjoy!
ADVENT FAMILY DEVOTIONS...
Keeping Christ in Christmas
by Marilyn Williams
© 2001 Marilyn Williams
© 2007 SBS Publishing
© 2008 Lulu Publishing
ISBN 978-0-557-02786-6
Every effort has been made to provide accurate information and proper acknowledgement
to all sources of information and quotations.
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without written permission.
For permission and further information:
Marilyn Williams
P.O. Box 302112
Escondido, Ca. 92030
www.MarilynWilliams.com
Dedicated to my precious family…
my husband Mike, my
daughter Jessica, and my son Jacob.
Thank you for a
lifetime of joyous Advent memories in celebrating the holy season
of Christmas, with or without money!
Introduction
First Things First…
Greetings! I would like to introduce to you my family’s favorite holiday celebration: Advent! No matter how many resources my family has had to celebrate Christmas, we have always enjoyed celebrating Advent as a symbol of the true meaning and joy of Christmas. The study of the prophecies of the past and the promises still to come have increased our faith and deepened our understanding of our most precious gift in every Christmas season: the gift of God himself through the birth of His Son Jesus
Christ! Unfortunately, this priceless gift of eternal peace so often gets overlooked during this frantic Holy Season. These priceless moments of consistently gathering together around our Advent wreath, reading the scriptures together, and singing Christmas Carols a cappella style have encouraged us in family bonding and spiritual growth while engraving life-long memories into each of our hearts.
Beginning on the Sunday four weeks before Christmas, Advent focuses on both the birth of Jesus Christ as well as His return. Advent, derived from the Latin word “Adventus,” literally means “coming.” The celebration of Advent takes you and your family back into the Old Testament, revealing the fulfilled prophecies of Christ’s birth, while propelling you forward into the promises of Christ’s future return and how this impacts you and your family today. My intent in writing this Family Advent Devotional is to equip you and your family with a simple, yet instrumental tool in keeping Christ in the center of your Christmas! Holidays are such fun opportunities to teach our children and remind ourselves of spiritual truths that can otherwise be difficult to understand, and yet need to be celebrated over and over again. I hope and pray this Family Advent Devotional will be a useful and significant tool in creating meaningful and memorable family fun during this festive time of year. - Marilyn Williams
Preparing the Way
Ready, Set, Go…
Sometime in November, before Thanksgiving, you will want to gather your supplies for the Advent Season. You will need an Advent Wreath (any type of small wreath that will hold four candles, preferably with a place to put a larger candle in the middle), four candles of the same size, three of them darker in color than the fourth, and a larger candle for the center of your wreath. You will want to think ahead about where your family will be doing your Advent Devotions together as this will help you decide upon the size and type of wreath you want. I prefer a small to medium sized wreath. The wreath makes a great centerpiece for your dining room table during the holiday season and the dining room table serves as a practical setting for your family to sit together during Advent Devotions. There is no one way or style to celebrate Advent. The objective is simply to celebrate Jesus’ birth and Jesus’ return!
If you choose to purchase your wreath, you can usually find Advent Wreaths at most Christian Bookstores as well as your local holiday gift shop. If you choose to construct your own wreath, the sky is the limit! Even if you purchase an Advent Wreath, there are various ways to add your own finishing touches.
1. Your first decision is to determine your candle color. The traditional colors are three dark purple candles and one light pink representing the colors of Jesus’ majesty. Some say that the dark color candles represent our time of repentance and the darkness of our lives without God. While the lighter candle represents the joy we have because God has come to us and made a way for us to come to Him. You can even use three red candles symbolizing our sin and a green candle as a symbol of the new life we have in Christ Jesus as our Savior, Lord, and King. Some people simply use all white candles to denote the holiness of the Christmas Season. Once again, it depends on your style or home décor. There is no ‘spiritual’ way of choosing the color of your candles. You can
even focus on simply matching your home décor. Most packages that are sold in stores specifically as Advent Candles are the traditional purple and pink taper candles.
2. A larger white candle, representing God’s pure and holy gift to mankind is traditionally placed in the middle of the wreath and is lit either on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day; however, even this may be altered with something else your family may decide to make part of your Advent Celebration. We have a big fat sparkly green Christmas Tree Candle in the middle of our wreath that we light every Christmas morning since my husband’s and my first Christmas together. When we were first married, we walked to the nearest thrift store in search of some very ‘inexpensive’ Christmas Decorations. We found this huge Christmas Tree Candle for about ten cents and it has been our Christmas
Morning Candle ever since! We light it at the end of our Advent Christmas Devotion, with the children, as a reminder of our covenant of love to one another before God and God’s covenant of eternal life to us through his Son Jesus Christ, the Lord of our home!
3. Decorating with fire retardant straw can also serve as a reminder of Jesus being laid in a poor feeding trough in contrast to the royalty He left in heaven to be with us! Be sure your candles and candleholders are secure, especially when decorating with straw.
4. Adding a white dove to your wreath can symbolize the Holy Spirit and helps us to remember we must be born again of God’s Spirit in order to have eternal life with God in heaven. (John 8)
5. A rose attached to your wreath can serve as a reminder that Jesus is The Rose of Sharon (Song of Solomon 2:1), crushed by men only to bloom in our hearts to live and reign forever!
If you are not a crafty person or you just prefer a simpler and traditional looking Advent Wreath, most gift shops can accommodate you. The most important part about setting up your Advent Wreath is to find a practical place and create a regular schedule that is workable for your family to come together on a consistent basis during this crazy time of year. I find that right after dinner works best for my family, even before we start cleaning up. So be creative and be sentimental; but most of all, keep it simple enough to be consistent. Whether you choose to purchase an Advent Wreath or whether you and your family choose to construct one, it is not the wreath itself that will become dear to your hearts. The fellowship time together and the spiritual truths that will be illuminated through the Scriptures will be creating and embedding life-long precious memories for each family member to store in their hearts for the rest of their lives. The Advent Wreath, along with its seasonal devotions, is a visual tool to help us understand and experience the depth of God’s love for us through the gift of His only begotten Son, Jesus. My family has celebrated the Advent Season with the same Advent Devotional for the last fifteen years. Each year, the Advent Devotions continually bring us awe and wonder regardless of the quality or quantity of gifts under the tree.
What’s a Family To Do?
Suggestions and Instructions…
The word “Christmas” is taken from the Middle-English expression “Christenmass,” literally, “Christ—Worship.” Advent serves as a beautiful and enjoyable way for every one of all ages to worship Christ during the Christmas Season. Ideally, Advent is set up to do every day during the Christmas Season, but if that is unrealistic for your family, Advent can simply be celebrated once a week as a family Advent day. Even if you can’t fulfill each family devotional during the week, the beginning devotion for that new week will transition your family into the next phase of the Advent season. As an alternative to meeting together as a family every evening, you can start with your weekly Advent time together and then give the remaining devotions to each of your individual family members for reflection during their own quiet times in the week. Join back together at the onset of each new candle to share what God has impressed upon everyone’s heart during the past week, and then transition into the next week’s Scriptures. It is a rare and precious opportunity for each member of the family to be pondering the same Scriptures during individual quiet times. As you can see, there is no one-way to celebrate Advent.
The work has been done for you, so just do what works best for you and your family! The idea is for you and your family to get away from the Christmas chaos and celebrate the past and future coming of Jesus as a traditional and consistent part of your Christmas Season. My family aims for every night, but we often have to do some catching up. That’s okay, too! Whatever you do, enjoy it! Don’t become so dogmatic about it that it becomes another source of strain and stress for you and your family, instead of the source of peace its message is intended to bring. You may want to start off slowly and simply, but you may find that your family enjoys celebrating Advent so much that everyone begins clearing their schedules as much as possible to make it happen!
It is also quite common to get additional and even unexpected company during the Advent Season. I have found Advent to be a comfortable and very natural way to lovingly share with friends, who happen to be in our home during our scheduled Advent time, about the true reason for the season! Guests will especially love singing Christmas carols together, even if it is a cappella style! You will be surprised at how powerful and how poignant are the extended verses of familiar Christmas Carols, which we rarely get to finish in their entirety. After you have done the initial setting up for Advent, you will find no preparation required. Simply turn to week one (THE PROPHECY CANDLE), continue the weeks through to the Christmas Candle, and have fun! The Scriptures are already in place and only need to be looked up and read out loud during your Advent time. The applications for each night’s scripture are already written and can simply be
read out loud. Younger children who are just learning to read find it fun to be the one to read the night’s Scripture out of the Bible, with a little of your help. Our children’s reading skills actually grew leaps and bounds after the Advent Season! Older children love to be the one to light the candle and introduce its theme, and of course all children love to blow out the candles. It is helpful to review the name and the significance of each candle previously studied, before lighting the present candle. We leave the candles lit throughout the entire devotional time. As we end each evening on a joyous note, we close by singing a few Christmas Carols together. The goal of Advent is to put the focus on Jesus as the true gift of the season. My hope is for the Advent Season to be just one more reminder for us all to be diligently watching and confidently waiting for Christ’s return as our personal Savior, The Lord of the Universe, and the King of all kings!
