I love Advent and Christmas. Advent, for the nonobservant, is a season in the Church calendar that begins four Sundays before Christmas and is meant as a time to prepare your heart and mind for Christmas. Some liturgical Christians are super strict about it and don't put up any Christmas decorations until Christmas Eve, but I'm not an Advent purist. My family and I are observant Christians, but we mix plenty of general cultural Christmas traditions into both our Advent and Christmas traditions.
One of my favorite things to do when it's time to pull out the Christmas decorations (never until after Thanksgiving, of course) is to bring up the book reindeer from the basement storage closet. These two reindeer were crafted by my father in law's students many decades ago when he taught wood shop in high school. They've suffered some abuse over the years. Both have lost their antlers, but they continue to do their job of holding our Christmas books. I'm not sure what they were originally intended to hold, but they do a fabulous job of being the bearers of the special books that only come out between the weekend after Thanksgiving and January 6th (that's right, there really are twelve days of Christmas, feel free to keep celebrating after the 25th :)). Our Christmas books have become so great in number over the years that they've spilled out of the reindeer and some are now stored under and leaning against our Christmas book holders. Here's one of our reindeer today. Our Elf on the Shelf, Sam, is even reading a book under the reindeer.
Every night of Advent, after lighting our Advent wreath, saying a prayer, and reading some Bible passages, we read a part of a Christmas themed book. This year's selection is
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Some of the other books we've read are pictured below in front of the second reindeer. I'm a particular fan of Santa Claus origin stories, as you can see.
Saint Nicholas Day falls on December 6th, usually during the first week of Advent. This day is observed most often in Germany and the Netherlands, but my husband's family started celebrating St. Nicholas Day during his childhood because they lived in a heavily German area of Wisconsin and my mother didn't want her children to feel left out. We've given Saint Nicholas Day our own twist in our family. The kids put out their shoes the night before, and they are filled with candy, an ornament commemorating the year in some way, and a book. Actually, the books are normally under the shoes, because the average book does not actually fit inside a shoe :). I used to be a stickler at giving Christmassy books, but now I've given up and just give each kid a book I know they'll like. For the 15 year old this year it was the latest book in the
Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales series, which he loves. For the 9 year old, it was a new graphic novel,
Twins, by Varian Johnson and Shannon Wright. The kids also receive a book and a new pajamas on Christmas Eve, but I don't have a representative picture of that.
Finally, I have a personal reading tradition every December. About ten years ago I discovered the book
Kringle by Tony Abbot. It's a Santa Claus origin story told though the medium of an epic fantasy, and it's amazing. I loved it so much, I bought a copy and read it every year sometime in December. It made it into the Advent family reading a few years ago, but my silly children don't want to hear a book more than once, so I normally have to read it on my own. The good news is, I can then read it at my own pace and don't have to stick to a chapter or two a day.
The book I'm querying right now has a Christmas theme. If it gets picked up by an agent or an editor someday, it may have to be our Advent book the year it comes out. Perhaps it will also brighten another family's December. I can hope, anyway.
One final note: I definitely don't think family readings during December need to be confined to families who celebrate Christmas. There are plenty of great Hannukah books, as well as a few for other holidays and a lot of fun winter stories. Cuddle together with your kids on a cold night (or pretend it's cold if you live in a warm climate and/or the Southern Hemisphere :)) and build some December reading traditions.
No comments:
Post a Comment