Faithful Families for Advent and Christmas: 100 Ways to Make the Season Sacred Paperback – August 18, 2020

I bought this book to help plan Advent activities for our family and our church's kid ministry. It has so many great ideas, and I love that it's not one of those "you-must-do-something-every-single-day" types of Advent books, which can feel overwhelming in an already stressful time of year.There is a lot of flexibility in what you choose and how you decided to make the activities work for your kids, your church, and your family. It's something you can pick up, flip through, and choose one or more things to fit into the Advent season without feeling stressed. Some of the ideas are simple and take as little as one minute, and others take a little more time and intentionality.Faithful Families has ideas for a wide range of ages too. I have younger kids, but many of the activities can be done with older children as well. To be honest, many of the activities can be done by yourself or with just your spouse. I think it would make a great gift for new parents during the Christmas season. 10/10 would recommend!

This book has been such a gem for me, both as a pastor and a mother. I wanted to send my families home with Advent activities each week to help them create more “Spirit” moments within the holiday busyness, and this book gave me everything I needed. We’ve really been enjoying it as a family, too, especially the Paper Chain Advent Calendar where we write a gratitude on each strip before adding it. My son is so excited to do it every night after dinner—and doesn’t let us forget!

YAY! Finally there is a book, resource, spiritual guide all in one that takes us all the way through the 1st part of the liturgical year. Traci Smith has put together a thoughtful, logical, simple, theological, creative, resourceful, engaging, educational, meaningful, helpful book that launches the liturgical year - Advent into Christmas into Epiphany - with energy, intelligence, imagination, and love! There is rich integrity in the writing and style that helps us with concrete ideas AND gives historical and spiritual guidance and information. This book is more than a "100 *ideas*" and is not like the usual artsy-craftsy resource one has to ferret thru to find 2-3 helpful ideas. I've read it thru once, can't wait to read it again, and start thinking about what we want to do at our house AND what we can do in our church. The timing of this release is perfect to begin planning this fall. Our Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany at home and at church will be better b/c of this book!

This book is chock full of wonderful ideas so you can start some new traditions during Christmas, Advent, and even New Year’s! I love the approach - pick one or two of her ideas (and involve the kids in the choosing if they’re old enough)! So accessible. This is not a book that guilts you into doing “one more thing” during the Christmas season - it encourages you to let things go that don’t work for your family. What sweet relief! I plan on keeping this book with my holiday decorations, so every year when we deck the halls we can peruse the book again and keep adding fresh ideas/fresh traditions when needed.

I love how this book brings into reach the beauty and wonder of the season without creating a “to do” list for already-busy families. Some of the ideas in this book are just one step away from things your daily routine already includes, and some are novel but so easy to implement that the question is not “how do we do that?” but “why not?” A lovely guide to focusing on the more meaningful side of Christmas.

I gave this to my children's families and it a wonderful way to celebrate and prepare

This book has been easy to navigate, and gives me so many ideas to make new sacred moments with my family. This book helps me think about ways I can turn annual chores into conversations about faith, and greater awareness of the life of Jesus. Any family would be blessed to have this in their home, and every church library should have this book on its shelf.

It's too early to tell if I'll like this book. It has a different feel to it than the other books I have. It is not a day by day book, rather a book for the season that you fit in the sections you want to cover. It still has scriptural references and reflections, some prayers and some different ideas of things you can do to celebrate the season that tie into our church and bible.