Australian Advent

What an Aussie Advent looks like

I was inspired to write about what our Advent looks here in the Australian Summer while driving in my car. I noticed all the jacaranda trees on our school run and the first lines came into my head. From there I thought and wrote about what else we look forward to in this time before Christmas. If you're an Aussie, I hope you can relate to some of these! And if you're not, I hope you can enjoy a taste of a different kind of Advent and Christmas.

Australian Advent

I first notice the jacaranda trees.
Purple patches against brilliant blue sky, 
poking out among the houses and fading, yellow lawns,
flowery lilac carpets underneath. 
I point out their daring beauty to the girls.

The days grow longer,
the sun's rays become hot and harsh. 
In the morning, I spend time watering, 
hose spraying onto my bare feet, 
refreshing water droplets on skin.

Christmas trees begin to appear
in windows, lights winking out at passersby.
But also the orange native ones,
just as bright, lining the streets,
spotted throughout bushland. 

Some days the aircon buzzes at midday,
and the kids run around in the sprinkler in the afternoon,
the fans whir lazily at night,
white noise keeping us cool. 
Other days we are outside as much as possible, 
soaking up the sun. 

My mouth starts to water 
for ice cold coffee
and Christmas crack,
delicious crunchy chocolatey goodness
that has nothing to do with Jesus being born 
but everything to do with making this season a sweet one.

We plan Christmas lunch with family,
I'll take this, Oh look at this recipe! Can you make that? 
Half the joy of the meal already begun 
as we chat and share and plan,
knowing the food will be plentiful 
and there will be leftovers for dinner.

My heart starts to yearn for the old familiar tunes, 
Joy to the World, O Come O Come Emmanuel, O Holy Night.
But also the new ones,
Behold the Lamb of God, Jesus What a Wonderful Child, The King is Coming.
They open my mind to the goodness of God
and we revel once again in the grand story.

Each day, we add to our Jesse tree,
tracing the lineage of our dear Saviour.
Colouring and hanging and learning, 
reminding ourselves of promises made and promises kept,
that we, too, yearn for the Messiah to come,
like the people of old.

For another taste of Australian Advent, check out Love, Light and Butterfly’s poem.

Sharing is Caring Advent Edition

Christmas crack is as addictive as it sounds. I didn't get to making it last year with a newborn in my hands but you better believe I'll be making up for it in the next couple of weeks.

For our Jesse tree we use these printable ornaments. We have a number of children's Bibles so we just read from whatever book has that corresponding story. We have a little wooden tree that I picked up from Big W a few years ago. For a number of years now I've drooled over buying fancy wooden Jesse tree ornaments but Chris always reminds me that the girls love colouring in every day, so the wooden ones can wait until they're older and over it hehe.

As for our favourite Christmas music, we love all the classics. We also enjoy Andrew Peterson's Behold the Lamb of God album. Also mentioned in the poem are Sandra McCracken’s Jesus What a Wonderful Child and Christy Nockels’ The King is Coming. More favourites this year are Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming, I Celebrate the Day, Mary, Did You Know?, this Handel’s Messiah medley, Noel, Zechariah’s Prophecy and Sing O Heavens.

The Christmas books we have on our shelf are The Christmas Promise, Seek and Find The First Christmas (such a fun way to get to know the Christmas story!), and A Very Noisy Christmas. I'm also personally going through Paul David Tripp’s Advent devotional (finishing off from last year when I only got half way).

This year I also gifted the kids a nativity set! I wrapped each piece individually for them to open one each day and they thought it was so fun, guessing the characters as they went. I've been looking at wooden nativity sets for a couple of years too but find it hard to fork out so much money (even though I'm sure they're so worth that price!). I found ours here and I love that it's wooden, a very simple design, affordable and supports a good cause.

I love making a family photo Christmas card to hand out to family and friends. I always use canva to design it and then Harvey Norman to print it out in photo form. Yes, fancy cardstock would look so much better but we all know they end up in the bin eventually so 15cent photo it is! It's the thought that counts, people!

Thanks so much for reading! What’s your favourite Advent or Christmas tradition? What’s a Christmas song you’re loving this year?