Sunday, December 02, 2007

Prayers around the Advent Wreath

In the comments section of the Christmas Mosaic post, Danae asked about prayers to accompany the Advent wreath.

I like to use prayers from Prayers and Customs of Advent and Christmas.

This page has prayers for the beginning of Advent, along with short daily prayers for each week.

This page has some nice prayers for very young children.

Some short Advent meditations are here.

A few recipes are here.

All of the prayers on this site are short and easy for families to use.

When we light the candles on the Advent wreath each night, we divide up the "duties" (which are seen by the kids as fun and privilege, thus the fighting over them which resulted in the division of duty.)

One child gets to light the candle, one reads the prayer, and one gets to snuff out the candle at the end of the meal (the antique candle snuffer we use makes this especially attractive.) This way, everyone is involved, duties rotate and everyone is happy. Some nights, though, everyone reeeeeally wants to light a candle, or everyone reeeeeally wants to snuff a candle out. So, sometimes, I must admit, we relight candles just for the fun of it, and snuff them out again.

Because we're easily amused, I guess.

Have fun. Because, as much as Advent is about spiritual preparation, it should be about fun with your family, too.

6 comments:

momto5minnies said...

WONDERFUL IDEAS .... thanks!

Mary Machado said...

Your distribution of duties is great - we often have those fighting over the lighting and snuffing situations here.

Unknown said...

Thank you for this. I had lost the little pamphlet that we usually rely on for our Advent prayer. I had another little booklet but I didn't care for how it was organized and it didn't have prayers for each week that would appeal to children. So thanks for this. I just printed it out!

Unknown said...

Actually that last message was from me, Faith of Dumb Ox! But for some reason Google insists I am my daugher, Hannah!

Crazy Google!

Karen Edmisten said...

I wondered who that Hannah was. :-)

Thanks, all!

Jane Ramsey said...

Isn't it funny how they find it so thrilling to snuff out the candle? Ours are so eager that they keep wanting to pre-emt the prayers, the songs, and advent calendar--all just to blow out the silly candle! :-)