Hello, friend!
What does the word Christmas bring to mind for you?
Perhaps it’s the excitement of receiving and unwrapping gifts, or the warmth of gathering with beloved family and friends. Perhaps it’s a certain kind of music — whether traditional carols or upbeat jingles. Perhaps it’s the stress of the many things to get done in the season.
Whatever the case, I’m sure that if you’ve recently moved into a season of parenting young children, the season has and will take on new meaning.
You might be anxious about the overload of sugar, screens and stimulation. Or dreaming about all the wonderful gifts you’d like to give and receive for your child and their little friends. Or, as a Christian parent, you might be wondering — how do I make this season count?
Here, I share 3 tips, in line with Charlotte Mason’s 3 instruments of education — atmosphere, discipline, and life.
Atmosphere: Engage all the senses
As moderns, it’s often easy to forget that we are more than just our brains. Even when relating to our young children, we can fall into a trap of thinking that what goes into the head is primarily what forms the heart. Yet, we are first lovers. We love, therefore we do. Regardless of age. And words, while powerful, aren’t the only things that move the heart.
At Christmas, we celebrate the incarnation. It’s all about how God took on the human form and came to walk among us. Christ had a body, he had senses, his body performed bodily functions.
When we relate as humans, we engage our entire beings, not just our heads. Therefore, and especially when relating to pre-verbal children, we can and should think about how we can engage all our senses to cultivate their heart’s affections toward what is True, Good and Beautiful (that is, Christ).
Consider your home atmosphere during the season of Advent, and how you can curate it to reflect the special features of this season (of longing, fasting and waiting), through the things that are seen, heard, tasted, smelt and touched. A song, taste or smell is more likely to leave an impression on a young child’s heart than a Bible story read aloud to them, or reciting a verse with words they cannot yet understand at this age!
If you’d like to reflect more deeply on your home atmosphere, and how it may be forming your children, pick up the free questionnaire at theordinarymatters.co !
Discipline: Keep it simple (and replicable)
We have a tendency to get over-excited and go all out, especially where it concerns something new and exciting. Or, at least, I have that tendency.
When we associate Christmas with the need to be OTT (over the top), we find ourselves caught in the trap of having to do bigger and better year after year. A tree can only grow so big before it can no longer fit, and overtakes the home it was meant to simply be a feature of.
There are many, many good things in this world. And in Singapore in particular, we have no shortage of good things, and plentiful access to them. The real challenge of stewardship is in choosing which few to partake of, and which good things to pass over.
When thinking about which Christmas traditions to incorporate in your home, start with what you consider most important, and build out from there. In our home, reflecting on daily Advent scripture readings is the cornerstone of the season, this being done in the context of the atmosphere as described above, and the life-giving ideas that come forth from it.
The discipline of habit helps us to do the same thing over and over, so that the actions of our bodies instruct our minds as to what is most important, and how we should live. Liturgical seasons such as Advent are precious opportunities for us to practice these repetitive and formational habits.
Keeping things simple helps make it replicable year after year, which then builds the familiarity and deep engagement with the season as your family grows. You’ll be surprised how just a few simple touches can make the season distinctively memorable, and even the youngest of children will realise it’s Advent again with a whiff of a familiar smell or sound of a familiar tune.
Get your own copy of our Advent Reading Guide below!
Life: Rest in His unchanging grace
With all the curating and the doing, it’s important to remember that the foundation of all of these things is the unchanging grace of God, which is the same yesterday, today and forever.
His grace is found in the repetitive nature of the seasons — we don’t need to get it all “right” this time because it’ll come again next year, and we can always try again! His grace is found in how some plans will blow up in our face and remind us that the season isn’t about our control over circumstances, but surrendering to His. His grace is found in the little glimmers and sparkles of magic we’ll get to catch during the season, in the meeting of old friends, jokes shared over good food, and happy toddlers singing carols in their own joyous way.
The Word became flesh.
He is with us.
Let these ideas breathe life into our homes and actions, and guide us as we plan and execute not in our heads, and not to our ideal people, but to the real families and friends that we have, in the real homes we live in, imperfect as they are.
The Ordinary Matters: Advent Reading Guide
The Advent Reading Guide is a resource for young families looking to intentionally centre their Advent season around scripture and the story of God. Daily readings will bring your family through the story of the Bible from creation until the birth of Jesus.
The Guide also provides practical ideas on how to set up the atmosphere, how to make the readings a habit, and different ways in which you can present the life-giving ideas of the Bible to your family, suited to the ages and stages of your children.
✨ Grab your copy of the Advent Reading Guide HERE. From now till 14 November, get $10 off your purchase with the code EARLYBIRD at checkout.
✏️ If the above application of Charlotte Mason’s principles to the season of Advent resonated with you, you might enjoy the Discipling Littles course, which applies her philosophy to the raising of young 0-3 year olds in Singapore. You’ll get the Advent Reading Guide for free, as a bonus in the course.
O come all ye faithful, let us raise a generation who will pine for Christ’s coming, as we remember how the world longed for a saviour!
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Soli Deo Gloria,
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