It can be so easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle during Advent and to just miss out on the beauty of the anticipation of Christmas. While it may be difficult to get rid of all of those distractions, it certainly is possible to set aside some intentional time as you and your family prepare for Christmas.
I normally make an activities sheet each month that focuses on feast days and other holy days for Catholic families, but I decided this month that I would also make a more general printable as well. Don’t worry, if you’re waiting for the Catholic specific one. It will be up later this week! There is a little overlap on the lists, but even if you’re waiting for the one later this week, you still might want to grab this one too.
Activities on the free printable of 10 Activities to Prepare Your Family for Christmas:
{The free printable can be found near the bottom of this post}
1. Go see Christmas Lights in Your Community. Take time to talk about Jesus, the Light of the World, bringing light into the darkness.
2. Celebrate Advent by using a Jesse Tree. If you don’t currently have one or want a guide to follow, this is a free downloadable eBook on Jesse Trees.
3. Go Christmas caroling (or even just visiting) at a nursing home.
4. Have a time of fellowship with family or friends by organizing a cookie swap or cookie decorating party for the whole family.
5. Set up a “store” in your home for your children to shop for their siblings/relative/friends. This is a fun way to give them the opportunity to feel the joy of giving.
6. Watch your favorite Christmas themed movie as a family. Bonus: Bundle up in blankets, eating hot buttered toast (or popcorn) and drinking hot chocolate (here’s a very yummy Nutella hot chocolate recipe).
7. Use an Advent Wreath at home weekly (or even each night!)
8. Do something to make the holiday season better for someone who is in need, sad, or lonely this year.
9. Attend an Advent or Christmas themed musical performance, play, or a Living Nativity.
10. Read one of the Gospel accounts of the birth of Jesus on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. Wait until then to add Jesus to your family’s Nativity scene. Ask the youngest family member to add Him to the crèche.
Important Note: This download is free for personal or classroom use. You may also share it in a church bulletin or newsletter, but the copyright credit line must be included (which just means to make sure that you don’t accidentally cut off the line with the copyright information at the bottom of the printable when you are reproducing it to hand out). This printable (and its contents) cannot be sold, published, or hosted on other websites.
If you want to pass along the printable though, please feel free to share a link to this post (not directly to the printable) with others. Another great way to share it is to pin this post to Pinterest! Thanks!
Download the 10 Activities to Prepare Your Family for Christmas Printable
(If you are having clarity issues with the printable, please right click on the image and choose “Save Link As” and download the document to your computer. Then, open it from your computer, rather than through your web browser’s PDF plugin, which can sometimes cause some blurriness or other issues. Actual printable page is much sharper than it appears in the thumbnail above. Printables are usually clearer when viewed on Google Chrome. I often have trouble with them on Mozilla Firefox.)
Look through all of the free printables here at Many Little Blessings
—
If you’re reading the blog by email or a feed reader, you’ll need to come to the site to link up your list post or to visit the other blogs that have linked up this week.
Join 25,000+ Other Awesome People
Subscribe to the Real Life at Home weekly newsletter to get our latest content, exclusive free printables, learning activities, and ideas for celebrating with your kids all year
I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this!!
This is the first year that we are actually celebrating Advent (beyond just the little box with one chocolate a day!)
I’m so glad that you like it, Jacque! I hope that you guys are able to do some of the activities. 🙂 The comment about the pieces of chocolate calendar made me smile though – I remember having those as a kid.
I seriously LOVE these monthly printables you make. 🙂
Do you have a landing page for all of them together? (I know, I know — one more thing on the to do list. )
Great job on the podcast, BTW!
Thanks, Dianna!
That’s funny – I hadn’t thought about a landing page for printables, but then I thought about it yesterday. I guess that means I should do one, huh? I’d need to decide whether to have all of the printables together on one page and then broken up by category or have separate pages for each type of printable.
If you’re just looking for the Catholic specific ones (the December one will be up on Friday), I actually do have those tagged: http://www.manylittleblessings.com/tag/activities-for-catholic-families/ But, yeah, a page would be better, huh?
I have shared the email about your post since I got it as a reminder that I really needed to put something together. It’s very simple, but I finally put up a page: http://www.manylittleblessings.com/monthly-activity-printables-for-catholic-families/
🙂
This is lovely, Angie! Thanks so much for sharing your printable. I featured your post as a Free Printable of the Day at the Living Montessori Now Facebook page and on Pinterest. 🙂
Thank you so much for sharing it, Deb! I really appreciate that! How kind of you. 🙂
I actually put a link to one of your posts on this printable that I put up recently: http://www.manylittleblessings.com/10-activities-for-catholic-families-in-december-printable/ 🙂
I also have it on another printable that I’m finishing up to put up on The Homeschool Classroom.