{Advent} Day 1- Candle

I know... I know it's Day 2 of Truth in the Tinsel and my title says Day 1. Well... life happened and we never got to doing our Day 1 Advent activity. In fact, I didn't even get to set up my Advent "calendar" till very late that night. At first I felt horrible. Then I came to my senses and realized. BIG DEAL! No one is monitoring me... it's not a test! The goal is to take time with Karis (2yrs) to learn/remember what we are truly celebrating this season. The birth of our Savior!

So, I had decided to do an alternate schedule with Truth in the Tinsel. My life is pretty busy with New Life Kids and being a mom to Karis and wife to Rick. So I decided to go easy on myself. ;) I never had the opportunity to purchase a full advent calendar so I printed some numbers online (see previous post: Getting Ready for Advent), and prepared my Advent days 1, 5, 9, 16, 19, 24.

Leftover favor boxes from my sisters wedding.... 6 years ago!

Printed cute advent numbers from Skip to My Lou!

Stuck the number cards on the outside of the boxes and the clue inside and...

Since I was only doing 6 days, I only needed 6 boxes. And since Karis loves touching the tree branches, I decided to tuck the clue boxes into our tree.

Can you see them? :)

I had Karis find the box with the #1 on it and had her open it to find the clue! The minute she saw it she was delighted and said, "CANDLE!" I went on and read the scripture reference while she played with the clue and her own small bible and chatted away.

Karis has been watching and listening to these DVD's, by Jana Alayra my mother had bought for her, over... and over... and over. She loves them they have great songs with wonderful lyrics and fun hand motions/body motions. So Karis has been hearing and singing about Jesus, especially a song that says "Jesus is the light." While reading and afterwards I started using language she had heard and was familiar with to make the association with who the Light is.


Karis put glue and tissue paper on the ornament while I helped and talked about darkness and light. I turned a lamp on and off to help her make associations. I used repetition and had her repeat after me. Whether or not she did is another story. :) And kept talking about Jesus being the light.

It was so much fun! We finished the ornament and she was proud of her work!

So the question is... Did she sit nice and quietly as I read scripture? ...Nope!  Did she talk while I read? ...Yup! Was she more interested in the clue card than what I was saying? ... Yup! Did she learn anything? ... Absolutely! Children (especially children under 5) are like sponges they are soaking up everything they are seeing and hearing, even when they aren't "paying attention." They hear you! Your actions and words are speaking volumes to them. Even just spending that time together is teaching them that you love to spend time with them.  What a "lesson" to learn!


So keep going. Even if you don't feel like they're "getting it." Repeat key words or phrases with little ones. Have fun with it and allow the Lord to pierce their little hearts with His Truth and His Love!


Are you doing Truth in the Tinsel? How did day 1 and day 2 go? Are you doing something with your family this Advent season? Please share your ideas and what your are doing. I'd love to hear about it!

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