5-Minute Christ-Focused Kids Advent Calendar

Do you occasionally feel overwhelmed by the Christmas season and like you don’t have time to focus on Christ with your kids? Here’s how we’ve incorporated a quick, 5-minutes-per-day Christ-focused kids advent calendar into our family routine.

Like many of you, I love the Christmas season. The music, the books, the food, the activities, the decorations. It’s so easy for me to get caught up in all of those things. I start thinking about gifts and soon, I’ve gone down a rabbit hole of Amazon research, or suddenly I’ve wasted 2 hours looking into the best new Christmas books. Those are all fun things, but when they take so much time that I’m too tired and busy to even think about the reason for our celebrations, it’s too much.

There are so many parties and programs that it’s easy to get burned out on FUN. It’s easy for kids (and adults!) to get caught up in thinking about me, me, me – what I want, what I want to do, what I want to eat/watch/sing.

It’s a priority for me to make sure each day has a few minutes of peace to consider WHY December is so exciting to us. I want to use that time to each of us to think of qualities we want to improve, and how we can serve others around us.

While I love to think about creating magic for my kids, I want THEM to think about making magic for OTHERS. I don’t want them to just be tunnel-visioned toward the presents of Christmas morning, or all the fun things they have going on. Rather, I want them to think of others who may be in need.

I want my kids thinking of ways they can not only experience joy, but also how to inspire it.

Kids Advent Scriptures and Christmas Service Ideas

For us, this means taking time for the SCRIPTURES and for SERVICE each day. These are the two most important parts of our advent. Even if we didn’t do any of the fun things, this is what I hope my children will remember from their childhood Christmases.

Still, it’s difficult to do elaborate service projects with a bunch of little kids, especially when time is tight. Everyone is busy – including places to give service! I don’t want it to feel so overwhelming that we just throw in the towel. I want it to be manageable and replicable for our family.

5 Minute Scripture and Service Advent

Over the years, I’ve developed a pretty good system for fitting in a daily scripture and service. On average, it takes us about 5 minutes. If we have time, we’ll include a Christmas song and activity. Most days include at least one Christmas picture book.  But even if we don’t have time for those extras, it’s easy to just do the scripture and service.

Our 25 Favorite Christmas Picture Books

116 Christmas Tradition Ideas

For the past few years, our church has put together a campaign to inspire daily service. Some of the ones included in this year’s Daily Service Calendar are kid-friendly, but many are not (my kids are clearly not posting on social media or donating blood). I also didn’t want a bunch of ideas that are really only relevant to children – I wanted our whole family to be able to participate together in meaningful acts of kindness and generosity.

So I put together our own calendar with kid-friendly Christmas service ideas that are also great for adults. I also included a scripture to inspire each day’s service, as it’s nice to connect our actions with those of Christ.

We like to read the service scripture in the morning quickly before school (we do it over breakfast). That way, we and the kids can be thinking of how to incorporate the service throughout the day. Then at night, we read a short Christmas story scripture. We do it based on the alphabet (e.g., Day 1 is A is for Angel, Day 2 is B is for Bethlehem, etc.). I printed these and put them in our advent calendar, and the kids take turns opening them.

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