Advent for Children: Ten Products Under $10!

Today I have a guest post for you guys from my friend, Liz, over at Catholic Deals. I am in love with her new blog, which is totally devoted to highlighting sales and bargains on Catholic products! If you haven't already subscribed to this blog, you should. Well, that is if you're Catholic and enjoy saving money. ;-) I love that she included several craft kits in this round-up!

 

Advent is coming, and many parents are looking for ways to teach their children about the importance of this season of anticipation.  This can seem difficult when the stores are already filled with Christmas merchandise. Luckily, there are a lot of great, inexpensive items that will involve your children in the celebration of Advent.  Here are ten Advent devotional items for children all under $10.

Christianbook has this lovely Fabric Advent Wreath for just $7.99.  I love the idea of a touchable Advent wreath that even the youngest children can explore.

Advent Candles Activity Magnets are another way that children can have their own Advent wreaths.  This set is $9.99 and comes with magnetic candles, candle flames, and prayer cards.

If your kids would enjoy making their own Advent wreaths, try the the Pop up Advent wreath sticker scene from Oriental Trading for $8 for a dozen.  This would be a terrific and easy class project as well.

An Advent charm bracelet is a unique reminder of the season.  This one from Oriental Trading Company is just $10 for a dozen.  Give some to your children and the rest as gifts to your godchildren or nieces and nephews. You can also get an Advent Charm Bracelet Craft Kit, which would be a great project for a CCD or Catholic school class.  The kit is just $9, and it makes a dozen bracelets.  Both the bracelet and the bracelet kit include cards explaining the symbolism of the candles and colors.

Also from Oriental Trading Company is a Make Your Own Nativity Sticker Advent Calendar.  This would also be a great class project, or you could make some with your kids this year and save the rest.  At $10 for a dozen, you could stock up for the next several years!

If you're looking for a reusable Advent calendar, this foam calendar from Autom is just $1.99 each (in a pack of 4).  Many reusable Nativity Advent calendars run from $25 to $50, so this is a terrific value for an item that you can use for several years.

 

Maybe you'd like to try making a Jesse Tree this year but are overwhelmed by the idea of making all the ornaments from scratch.  Well, help is at hand. This Jesse Tree Ornament Kit is only $7.50 and contains an explanation fo the Jesse Tree, 12 ready-to-assemble 3-D ornaments, corresponding Bible verses, illustrated instructions, sting, and sequins.

To go along with your Jesse Tree, check out this intriguing storybook that involves the Bible stories of the Jesse Tree. In The Jesse Tree by Geraldine McCaughrean, an old man retells the scriptural stories of Christ's lineage to a young boy.  The paperback copy is $9.99 from Christianbook.

To involve the whole family in Advent prayers and activities, try Getting Ready for Christmas: A Daily Advent Prayer and Activity Book for the Family.  This title is $6.29 for a book and Advent calendar in one, and it includes daily prayers and activities.   Finally, even the littlest ones can participate in Advent activities with the Advent Coloring Book by Fr. Lovasik.  This is just $1.95 from The Catholic Company. I hope you find the perfect item among these selections to enhance your family worship and your children's anticipation of Christ's coming at Christmas.

Liz McGuirk shares deals on Catholic products at Catholic Deals, where she hopes to help families "save money on creating a Catholic home."  Be sure to follow her by email or on facebook for great deals on Christmas devotional items and gifts, and watch for her upcoming Catholic gift guides for all ages.

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Star of Wonder, Star of Night

This year (2011) the epiphany is being officially celebrated on January 2, but the traditional day for the epiphany (and the end of the 12 days of Christmas) happens on January 6, so you still have some time to celebrate the epiphany with your kids. Try celebrating with stars!

 This Beautiful Star can be crafted out of leftover

wrapping paper! Find the directions on Family Fun.

Make these Paper Stars with The Magic Onions. 

Make these Crispy Cheese Stars with Family Fun

as a fun epiphany snack! 

Craft these Fold and Snip Paper Stars with Family Fun.

I love these little 3D Paper Stars from Family Fun!

Craft Stars from toilet paper tubes with Muffin Tin Mom.

Find directions for making this Wired Star over on Family Fun.

Combine your crafting skills with a little science to Craft these Stars.

Directions on Family Fun.

You could even give you daughter a cute Star Hairdo

with Princess Hair Styles. Isn't this so cute?

Or you could try making these Northern Star Cupcakes.

If there's one cookie cutter shape I'm willing to bet you all have,

it's a star. So just take your star cookie cutter and go crazy on 

whatever you're eating. Like these Star Sandwiches from Ideals to Life.

If you're looking for some different epiphany crafts, don't miss my round ups of King Crafts, Crown Crafts, or Crown Cakes. Happy celebrating, everyone! 

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Putting Jesus in the Creche - A Family Tradition

So, your creche has been awaiting the arrival of you little ceramic Jesus for 4 Sundays of advent, and it's almost time for Him to claim His place in the manger!

Violet's Godmother (who grew up in the cutest Catholic family ever) has a great tradition for kids to add Baby Jesus to the manger scene! Every year when they returned from the vigil mass on Christmas Eve, they would have a Baby Jesus Hunt! It's just like and Easter egg hunt, only you're looking for Baby Jesus. Doesn't that sound like a great Christmas tradition?! :-)

Here's what you do:
Hide all the Baby Jesus' from your creche sets before you leave for Christmas mass. When you return from mass, have your kids search until they retrieve every Baby Jesus for all of your nativity sets. Make sure that each child has at least one. (If you're at all obsessed with nativity sets like me, that should be no problem).

Then you sing a Christmas song (Such as Away in a Manger) while your family processes from creche to creche adding Jesus to the manger.

Let the smallest child have the Baby Jesus from your main nativity set, and after adding Him, have a blessing of the creche. You can print a copy of a Creche Blessing Here. Here's a different creche blessing where you bless each piece separately. I love my new creche for this year! See how all the pieces have a different bible verse on them? 

This set is called the Scripture Nativity Set and I remember seeing it at Wal-Mart last Christmas, but I couldn't afford it. Luckily for me I found the same set (new in the box) at a yard sale last Summer! I was soooo excited! This year we also have a large Baby Jesus with a wooden manger from Catholic Child Catalog.

 

I am in love with this new Christmas decoration- it's my favorite of all! We have His empty manger patiently awaiting Christ front and center in front of the (fake) fireplace.

I really look forward to starting this tradition with my family this year, and I just know my children will love it! Does your family have a tradition for adding Jesus to the nativity set? We'd all love to hear about it! :-)
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Religious Christmas Dinner Ideas

Looking for a way to Keep Christ in Christmas as you serve your roast beast? Well, here are a few cute ideas I have found on the internet.

Cleverly share a Reading of the Christmas Story with your

dinner guests- check this out on Inspiring Ideas. 

Jeanne from Inspiring Ideas also prompts us to remember our true

guest of honor at our dinner table this Christmas.

Cut Out and Keep has directions on how to make

Baby Jesus Buns as your dinner rolls.

For your centerpiece, use your advent wreath, but add a white 

Christ Candle to the middle. You can make this as easy or as hard 

as you'd like, from a plain white candle to a very decorated one.

Keep using your Christ Candle through the entire Christmas season.

I absolutely love these Nativity Candles from My Little Flower!

I'm hoping to decorate our Christ Candle using this technique!

I almost forgot! Be sure to Make Jesus a Birthday Cake
for your dessert! This one is from Jeanne at Inspired Ideas.
Click here to see a round up of Happy Birthday Jesus
cakes that I put together last year.

I'm hoping to use all these ideas at our Christmas dinner table, but we'll see what I have time for! ;-) We're definitely having at least a plain white Christ candle, and I'm really going to try to include the reading of the Christmas story! Also, the birthday cake is s must for us. ;-)

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Food Ideas for O Antiphons

I know we're already one day into the O Antiphons now, (they start December 17), but Catholic Cuisine has an AMAZING post about different foods to make for each of the O Antiphons, starting with these little books for "Wisdom".

Jessica has also provided a free printable with each O Antiphon to attach to gold coins. So simple and elegant! Click over to check it out.
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O Antiphons Printable Prayer Companion

Hurry over to O Night Divine to get an amazing prayer companion that you can print for free! The O Antiphons start on December 17- check your calendars, that's today! Go print it now- you still have time!

Here's an example of one of the pages.

They all include beautiful pictures!

My favorite thing about this download? It includes the lyrics to "O Come O Come Emmanuel" on each appropriate day. Yay for making things easy! :-)
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O Atiphons Ideas

No matter what you may have already missed the boat on this Advent season, the O Antiphons don't start until December 17, so you still have time! If you're wondering "What are the O Antiphons?", click here and read all about them! Basically every day from December 17-24 you highlight the Messiah with a different name, each of them starting with "O" (Ex: O Emmanuel). Here are some ideas for celebrating these days:

Over at Family Centered Living, you can find these beautiful

O Antiphon Ornaments that you can print for free! :-)

(She has the matching Jesse Tree ornaments, too.)

You can find coloring pages on O Night Divine for each of the O Antiphons. Your kids can color one each day! Find them here: O Sapientia, O Adonia, O Radix Jesse, O Clavis David, O Oriens, O Rex Gentium, O Emmanuel.

Also on O Night Divine, find directions on making these 

O Antiphons Ornaments from bottle caps.

Find a different food to coordinate with each O Antiphon

over at Waltzing Matilda, such as this Texas Sunrise for

"O Dawn of the East, brightness of light eternal, and sun of justice..."

Seriously don't miss my O Antiphons round up from last year! There are some other really great ideas in that other post- I just didn't want to bore you with re-runs. :-)
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Easy Nativity Cookies

We all know that I'm a crafter- not a baker. But being a baker seems to be a mommy-requirement at Christmas time. My awesome friend Liz (from Frugally Blonde) hosted a cookie exchange for my Catholic mother's group this year that I was not going to miss out on! I got an adorable set of nativity cookie cutters this year, so I thought we'd give 'em a try!

I didn't want to be stressed out about decorating enough cookies for an exchange, so I was determined to come up with something simple to do. Rather than utilizing all the icing tips that came in my cookie cutter set, I decided we would just sprinkle the cookies with colored sugar. This was a perfect job for little fingers! We sprinkled the sugar on before baking the cookies.

In my opinion, the price they charge for the colored sugar they sell in little spice jars is bordering on highway robbery, so we make our own colored sugar. If you're new to this idea, check out my directions for diy colored sugar. I tried to choose colors symbolic to each nativity piece as best as I could. The nativity colors I ended up using were blue for Mary, green for Joseph, yellow for Baby Jesus & the star, white for the angel & the sheep, purple for the kings, red for the camel, and brown for the shepherd & the donkey. (No need to make brown sugar- I'm sure you already have some!)

 

I made one set for everyone exchanging cookies, set them on paper plates. Then wrapped them up in plastic wrap.

The set I got came with these pieces:

There was no shepherd in the set, and it didn't have an angel either! I already had an angel cookie cutter that I threw into the mix, and I also had a star that I felt was a little more "star of Bethlehem" than the one that the set came with.

No shepherd cookie cutter? No problem! For my shepherd, I used the king cookie cutter. I just used my finger to round out his head and get rid of the crown. I also flipped him over before I baked him so that he would face the opposite direction of the kings. I flipped some of my sheep, too. When the shepherds were almost done baking I carefully pressed a candy cane "staff" onto the cookies and put them back in the oven for just a minute. Watch them carefully- you only want the candy cane to melt a little bit and it doesn't take long!

I thought the cookies turned out really cute, and my kids loved getting to help! It's so great to be answering questions about the wise men while cutting Christmas cookies with my kids. I was going to be making cookies anyway, so this was a great opportunity to make another Christmas activity focus on the true meaning of Christmas.

 

I can't wait to find some other uses for our nativity cookie cutters! Maybe next year I'll stop being so lazy and actually crack out some icing for decorating them... or maybe not. ;-) 

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