Advent

Okay, I have decided in a very after-the-fact choice to start a weekly Advent series.

This is a surprisingly little-celebrated holiday.  "What's the point?", I often asked as a child.  "Jesus has already come; why celebrate a holiday, waiting for Him to come?"

Aside from the fact that we are waiting for His return, I've noticed something about what Satan has done to this time of year... He has conveniently made it the busiest, most stressful time of year for everyone:

Finals, 

pageants, 

parties, 

shopping, 

cleaning,

cooking, 

rehearsals, 

projects, 

extra church services...

The Jewish people have a tradition of welcoming the Sabbath every week with the lighting of candles, singing of songs, saying of prayers, and eating of food.  We call this the Shabbat dinner, and, just in case you had any doubts left about it, it's just like in Fiddler on the Roof:

It occurred to me Advent is a time that the Christians can come incredibly close to having this tradition of peace reinstated into their religion, for, during Shabbat, we leave our worries in the week; we step away from all Satan has heaped onto us.

I would like to encourage you and your family to take at least one night a week to celebrate Advent.  Many families would do things with Advent Calendars, but we never did (at least not that I remember... I'm sure my mom will be on here soon, correcting me... go ahead, Mom).  Rather, we would traditionally would open by singing O Come, All Ye Faithful and lighting the candles, followed by prayer and then the family's requests for various songs.  To this day, I cannot hear the song without smelling the smoke of a freshly lit candle.  Traditions are good.  Traditions help families and faiths stay strong.  I'd encourage you to start some traditions of your own.

That being said, I'm getting to the part of this post that you will find reoccurring in this series... sorry the introduction took so long (In fact, I'm going to make a new post for that).  Here in Korea, we've started our own Advent celebrations, and I wanted to share some with you, as a guide in case you still are running short on activities for your family.  Unfortunately, this means that you will not get our materials in time for a Sunday celebration, as we are celebrating on Mondays, but hey... I'm sure G-d won't mind.

Oh... still confused?  Click the title of this post.

<3