Family Activities To Prepare For Christ's Birthday

By Paula Day

Alternatives works in cooperation with a dozen different denominations to provide resources annually for more than 10,000 church congregations who want to say "no" to the commercialization of Christmas.

The following activities are excerpted from these resources as suggestions for preparing for Christmas during Advent.

Build Family Shalom -- (Shalom is a Hebrew word expressing a unity of harmony, justice, wholeness and well-being.) Make a list or draw a picture of different activities you like to do as a family -- ways in which you experience shalom -- and decide to do one of them during the coming week. For example, the family may enjoy popping corn and sitting down together to watch a favorite family television show or reminiscing about past family times. Or have each family member name a special quality about every other family member and write them out in colored pencil or markers to hang on the wall. Or have each family member draw a name of another member of the family to surprise in some special way during the coming week.

Construct two cardboard boxes, one to be covered with purple paper, (your "non-shalom" box) and one covered with white or Christmas paper, each with a slot in the top. Discuss the ways in which darkness creeps into your home (arguments, selfishness, busyness, not listening) and write these things on paper and put them "away" in your non-shalom box. In the shalom box put notes from each family member describing what they especially enjoy doing with the family; what special thing they like about each member of the family. Decorate the box with pictures or drawings of the family.

Make A Promise Tree -- Put a branch in a sand-filled pot. Each day in Advent write a promise to a family member and hang it on the tree. Maybe a sister promises to let another sister borrow and wear a favorite article of clothing or a father promises to take a son to a soccer game. On Christmas Eve decorate the Promise Tree with hand-made symbols of Christ's birth. A star, a crib, a shepherd's staff are some possibilities.

Send Peace Notes -- On Christmas stationery write a short note wishing peace and justice for the world. Send your family's peace message to someone in the Soviet Union. For a list of names and addresses of Soviet people you may write, send a stamped, self-addressed envelope to the US-USSR Reconciliation Program, Fellowship of Reconciliation, Box 271, Nyack, NY 10960.

Write a letter to the President to express your family's desire for peace and your feelings about spending your family's tax monies for weapons. Children may draw pictures. Send to The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, DC, 20500.

In addition, have each family member make a peacemaking promise (Examples, for children: "I promise not to yell at _____"; for adults: "I promise to write my congressman/senator," or "I promise to pray for peace.") These peace notes can be placed in the shalom box or hung on the Promise Tree.

Reach Out To Others -- Prepare a meal for a soup kitchen and help serve it. Many parishes are involved already in such activities so link up with your parish, if possible, for this activity.

Prepare a "food basket" with your favorite family foods and deliver it to a local food pantry, perhaps one managed by your parish's St. Vincent de Paul chapter.

Plan a special outing for an elderly or a lonely person during the holiday season. Brainstorm as a family how best to do this. How can you be "home" for someone else?

Spend an evening selecting some of your belongings to be given away. Take this opportunity to talk about the kinds of things you give away; make sure you are thinking of the receiver, and make sure you are giving things that you would like to receive.

Giving is at the heart of Christmas. "God so loved the world as to give His only begotten Son" are John the Apostle's words that may well explain the origin of our gift giving, an explanation that precedes the St. Nicholas legend by centuries. Planning alternate ways of giving can be a meaningful Advent activity.

Give Of Your Skills -- This gift could be given to a group of disadvantaged. Teach cooking, auto repair, bookkeeping to young people, or actually cook, repair or help someone with their bookkeeping chores.

Give Of Your Creative Talents -- Cook traditional foods like cookies and fruitcake or your "specialty" like bread or apple butter. Share your recipe as part of your gift.

Sew a simple pattern, then personalize it with embroidered initials or an appliquéd design. Sew floor cushions, pillow, place mats or a rug to suit the recipient's taste. Sew soft toys or beanbags or puppets for a child.

Frame a favorite picture. Illuminate, illustrate, embroider or silkscreen a passage or poem and then frame it.

Renew an old possession. Make new clothes for a well-loved doll, rebind a tattered book, refinish a scarred chest or chair.

Build shelves, a spice rack, a window box, a bird house, a gerbil cage, a sand box, a doll house, a lamp, a set of blocks, a game … anything.

Plant spring bulbs in pebbles or in a bulb glass to bloom in the middle of winter. Plant a terrarium in an aquarium or large jar. Plant a windowsill herb garden.

Pour melted wax into milk cartons, cans cardboard tubs, eggshells, Jell-O molds or damp sand to create candles.

Write a history of your family for family members or a history of your friendship with a particular person. Illustrate it with old photos.

Group activities with persons outside your family can strengthen your commitment to preparing for and celebrating Christmas:

Hold Advent Workshop -- With others, perhaps a parish group, organize a workshop to encourage people to make some of their gifts. Collect materials for grapevine and pine cone wreaths, wooden candle holders, cutting boards, tree decorations -- the list can be expanded using the skills and imagination of people in the group. Volunteer supervisors can help with the basics of structure and design. Charge just enough to cover the cost of materials.

Include Prayer -- The following "Litany on Remembering" can help keep the focus in your pre-Christmas preparations.

ALL: O God, who in the fullness of time sent your Son Jesus to live among us so that we would know with certainty your will for us, guide us now as we prepare to celebrate His coming.

Leader: When we make our family plans for Christmas,