Advent Traditions

This season leading up to Christmas, we have been trying out a number of traditions.

Every Sunday, we have been trying to follow a free Advent book we found online Born a Child and Yet a King

We have been lighting Advent Candles, (and adding another candle every week up to Christmas) , and singing some amazing hymns. Today, we sang "Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus", an amazingly beautiful hymn, full of rich meaning, and found that two of the verses were written as recently as 1978 by Mark Hunt (the other two verses were written in 1744 by Charles Wesley). It is difficult to find the complete lyrics on the internet (due to copyright issues), but you can find them in the Advent book I have mentioned earlier.

Everyday, we have been following Ann Voskamp's Jesse Tree Advent devotional book. Anand enjoys pinning up the picture for the day on his own home-made Jesse Tree.

Every night, before sleeping, inspired by Molly Piper's story, Arpita has been reading Luke chapter 2 aloud to Anand. He enjoys it. Yesterday, we were listening to a Gaither Vocal Band Christmas CD Still the Greatest Story Ever Told while eating, when Anand suddenly stopped eating, sat up straight, pointed to the CD player, and said, "Look, he's reading from Chapter Two!"

As we get closer to Christmas, we will take out our figurines and re-construct our nativity scene as we did last year.

I'm interested in knowing what traditions you are following.........