Advent musings

Ok, I've thought and prayed and read and looked for A Word From God about the next blogged Bible study and the only thing I'm hearing in my spirit is 'Advent'.

So, I guess I'm going to go way outside my beaten path and do some studies about Advent for the next few weeks. I'll have to work up a syllabus...I'm not even sure where I'm supposed to go with it, so it'll be a challenge to even get the syllabus down.

But that means it's going to be something different and new for me, too...in the 5 B's study, I at least had a syllabus provided for me. This one is going to be on my own.

But, kind of as a prep for that, I thought I'd post something about Real Life in Advent in America.

Other countries have Advent traditions; the American Advent Tradition is, I'm rather ashamed to say, the Christmas Wish List.

Christmas shopping, Sales, buying, what-do-you-want-this-year. I don't know how we got on this treadmill, but somehow the joy of the wise men and their gifts seems to be lost.

So, when our kids were young, we came up with a way to stem the tide a bit. Each child got 5 gifts:

Something to read
Something to wear
Something to play with alone (a toy)
Something to play with with others (a game)
A craft or hobby item.

Some years we combined gifts for larger ticket items...the American Flyer trains that My Sweet Baboo restored for the boys as they were old enough, for instance, counted as both the toy and the hobby items that year.

It made shopping much simpler. We knew when we were done, and everyone had roughly the same value in gifts.

A friend said they did something similar, only they limited it to three gifts, because that was what the Magi brought to Jesus. Basically, they did what we did without the clothes and the books. That may be what we shift to once we become parents of adults/grandparents...or, we may just decide 'one fun gift, one practical gift'. Or maybe we'll just fill stockings for everyone.

We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

First, I need to focus on this Advent season. I'm actually late starting my shopping/crafting this year; not sure why, but that's the truth.

So an Advent Bible study will be a Good Thing...it will help keep me focused on what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown: The coming of the Savior.