It is hard to believe that we have been doing an acts of kindness advent calendar for four years. It all started when I was concerned that the boys were becoming rather immersed in the commercialisation of Christmas and of advent. I wanted them to understand and learn about Christmas and advent being about giving, so came up with the idea of an alternative advent calendar.
I love Christmas and the Advent. I really want to celebrate advent and use the time to focus on the true meaning of Christmas and make it about giving and have a joy filled time with my family. I want advent to be about more than just opening a door on an advent calendar and getting a piece of chocolate, I want it to be a time where we cement our family traditions and give joy to other people.
I am delighted to share with you these free advent acts of kindness printables. This year we have gone with an adorable bauble design. Wow, I can not believe that we have been doing acts of kindness at advent for the last three years!
Advent is the perfect for focusing on the joy of the season, but it can also seem really commercial. A couple of years ago we started our Advent acts of kindness, an alternative advent for kids to try and refocus this time away from receiving to giving. Lasy year we made a Reverse Advent Calendar.
As you have probably guessed we LOVE advent and Christmas here in The Mad House. Last year we provided you with two sets of advent acts of kindness free printables. One Christmas tree shaped and the other in a tag style. This year we have a real treat for you with our advent acts of kindness free printables. These are perfect for using in conjunction with The Kindness Elves.
Advent is the perfect for focusing on the joy of the season, but it can also seem really commerical. last year we started our Advent acts of kindness, an alternative advent for kids to try and refocus this time away from receiving to giving. We do our acts of kindness in addition to our other advent activities.
Christmas, we love it. But as much as I love Christmas and the build up to it, it is important to me to focus on my family and not just on the commercial aspect of just Christmas Day. Part of the way we do this is by having advent activities that we do. It helps me to focus on my family each day in this busy busy period of the year. So here is our ultimate advent activity list for 2015.
Do you have adventurous kids? I do, in fact they are far braver than me. Nothing seems to scare my lads and there is nothing they enjoy more than an outdoor adventure. But the trick to getting your kids outdoors is to turn outdoor activities into outdoor adventures!
We love advent and one of the ways we celebrate is to have an advent wreath or ring that we light each sunday to help celebrate the lead up to Christmas. The first Sunday of advent for 2014 in November 30th. Me and the boys have spend the last few days making this years advent ring, even though it is more of a plinth! People light one candle on the first Sunday of Advent, two on the second Sunday, three on the third Sunday and all four on the fourth Sunday. Some people then continue to light all four candles during the Christmas period. Traditionally an advent ring has three purple and more »
Our ultimate advent activity list was such a success last year, so we have updated it for this year and it now has 75 activities on it.
So you saw my recent post with the 50 advent acts of kindness with the two free printable sets designed by the lovely Purple Pumpkin blog. Well I wanted to share with you ways to display them or use them. We tried to make it easy for you all by offering them in two different sizes (A4 and US letter size) in addition to two designs christmas trees and also gift tags. We love Anna from The Imagination Trees Kindness Elves and this would be a great list to use for Kindness Jars
Advent, we love it. It is a BIG thing here in The Mad House. We use advent as a way to celebrate the build up to Christmas and to take the commercialism out of it. The MiniMads have not yet had a chocolate advent calendar, although I might bend to their wishes this year! We have an activity advent calendar instead and this year we are having an alternative advent calendar, where we are going to do an act of kindness each day Kindness can cost nothing and I want to raise the MiniMads to always be kinder than they need to be and feel that focusing on acts of more »
Since Easter my boys have been walking to school on their own. They scoot, bike, walk or run regardless of the weather, but I know that this isn’t always the case for all children.
Now that we have got down the Advent box, I thought it was time to share with you some of our favorite books about Advent and Christmas.
Advent for me is part of the way of getting away from the whole consumerism of Christmas Day. As a family we have our own advent calendar that I made and we do an activity each day throughout advent, which helps us focus on the true meaning of christmas for us. Plus I have to admit that since my Mum was found dead on Christmas Day three years ago, this helps me keep up a brave face to the boys and not become too down.
