There are two particular stories from our experience with our first Advent calendar that I want to put into writing simply so that I remember them....the kind of stories that perfectly express the adorableness (if that is a word) that is toddler-hood.
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| Our Advent envelopes each contained one bible verse and one fun activity. |
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| Countdown to Christmas! |
Several days ago, our "special Advent activity" was to
share a bowl of holiday ice cream. This seemed like a good idea for two reasons; 1. Josiah suddenly needs some serious practice with sharing, and 2. ice cream is always a good idea, especially holiday flavors that just don't seem appropriate throughout the rest of the year. So anyway, we successfully shared our bowl of ice cream and everyone was happy. Then, a few days later, when Josiah helped to take down another Advent envelope, we took the Bible verse card out and gave it to Daddy and Josiah held onto the special activity card. While Daddy was trying to get started reading the Bible verse, Josiah held up the activity card, pointed with his finger as though reading, and announced with authority:
"share ife-cream!" We were all so taken by surprise that all we could do was sit there and laugh. And even though our activity was really just to sing Christmas songs, we decided that it would be okay to have a little bit of ice cream when we were finished!
The second story just re-iterates my belief that there is too much confusion for children (and probably adults for that matter) surrounding the purpose of Christmas. Maybe I will write another post another time about my beliefs about Christmas, but that is not really the point. The point is that Josiah clearly illustrated how things might get a
little confusing when you manage to include Santa in your Advent activities. When our little friend Kiante came over for a few hours, Josiah was totally excited to show him the gingerbread house we made from a kit for one of our Advent activities (which happened to include a little candy Santa). So, in his very broken English, Josiah starts trying to help me understand that he wants to show the gingerbread house to Kiante....and one of the phrases he is using to try to talk about the gingerbread house is "Santa....God made that" Santa....God made that". He was trying to tell Kiante that God made the little Santa that is cemented by the front door of the house with frosting. While this was...lets face it....totally cute, I realized that we are going to have some work to do if we want to differentiate between the consumer-driven celebration of Christmas and what we believe to be the most important "reason for the season".
