Advent with Kids (+ Free Verse Cards)

I don’t know about you, but despite my best efforts, this season is getting away from me. Every year, I fight for less rushing and more rhythm. I resolve to slow the pace and focus on the few things that truly matter—Christ at the forefront. And every year I fall short. I apologize to my oldest for rushing him through yet another math lesson. I find myself stress eating chocolate chips from the pantry every time I hear my one year old whine. I preface with all of this only to say that if it looks like I might have something figured out that you don’t, it’s not true. The truth is my naturally Type A personality forces me to regularly evaluate my efforts and make changes to my daily rhythms. It’s a lot of trial and error over in this neck of the woods.

So before I share our Advent traditions and offer up some free resources, I am giving you full permission to take a glance and say “this isn’t for us.” Or “this year it’s too much, but I’ll bookmark it for next year.” (If I had planned this better, I would have shared it three weeks ago, but I suppose it’s better late than never, right?

For the last several years, we have carried on the yearly tradition of Advent through wrapped books and names of Jesus ornaments. The first year required more upfront work in collecting a wide assortment of Christmas books and making the ornaments, but every year since has been super low prep. 

You can read about this tradition here. 

This year, I was feeling especially crafty (and frugal) and decided to add another element of creating scripture reading cards that correspond with the names of Jesus ornaments I had made. I saw an adorable idea on Pinterest to make little gingerbread houses out of brown paper sacks and labeled them 1-24. Each morning of December leading up to Christmas, the boys pull out a verse card and a small candy cane so we can read it together and pray over our day. A friend asked the other day if I would be willing to make these cards available for download, so I am sharing them here. 

In summary, our verse cards are a part of our morning time homeschool rhythm and the Advent tree/nightly book reading and ornament hanging takes place before bed with my husband and kids. For instance, this morning, we read a verse about God being the Good Shepherd, so my kids will look for the corresponding ornament this evening. 

It’s been a sweet, simple way to bring it back to Jesus each morning and night amidst the hokey Christmas movies and hot chocolate and merriment. And again, I’m sharing this resource in the event that it could be a blessing for you and your family, too. It’s ok that we are already a few days into Advent. It’s not too late to regroup and refocus. You can download the cards as a standalone and read them during mealtime or before bed with your kids. There is no pressure to make it beautiful or perfect. The deeper into this motherhood journey I find myself, I learn that our kids don’t need (or even want) our perfection. They just want us to show up, look them in the eyes, and be present.