Family Nativity and Advent

So you might think I’m crazy since I already shared our family advent calendar with you a couple of days ago. But here’s the deal. Our mom’s group had an advent making craft night and I helped some ladies pick and cut out a felt nativity. It was SO cute – we ordered our craft sets from heartFELTtruth on etsy. Be sure to check out her shop. These were very simple and so cute that I went home and created my own. The clear pockets and tags were things I had already made, but hadn’t figured out how to use.
I have this interesting view of the holidays that includes the miracle of Jesus and the magic of Christmas (even Santa and his elves). So I’ve been looking for ways to incorporate both. I’m also still trying to discover what traditions we want to do as a family, where we will focus, and in the process am trying different things out.
So here is the low down on this family nativity – I wanted something hands on and kid friendly.
Behind each tag is a piece of our felt nativity and a short reading that tells the story of Jesus. This year I’m trying out these readings that I found on a blog called Part of the Main. The back of the tag also reveals a line of “Santa Claus is Coming to Town…” I printed the tags/lyrics from this printable on another blog called The Painted Hive. They were fun to do because I used my epson printer to print directly onto the tags. I had never done something like that before.
Maybe a bit sacrilegious? 😉 But also really fun.
It is hung at Cashel’s level so he gets to help do it. This is in our “play way” which is our version of a “play room.” We don’t have a large home so I maximized our space and used our upstairs hallway to create a reading/craft/play area that we call “the play way.”
We are just 4 days in at this point so we have added Mary, Joseph, Bethlehem, and The Inn. And done the first four readings. I found these awesome readings. Right now they don’t match perfectly with the pieces we are adding but I figure that doesn’t entirely matter when Cashel is so little. We will work through it this year and make adaptations as the years go on. 🙂
Here is a view of the whole “play way” where you can see the pockets and felt backdrop for the nativity hung.
I also took a picture of the nativity in it’s completed form so you can see how cute it is!
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