advent traditions

As we complete our first week of Advent, I thought I would share what we decided to do as a family to celebrate this sacred time.  Now that we have baby Pier, I want to be intentional about what we incorporate in our family prayer time to make this season as peaceful as possible for us. Brad and I came up with a simple way to pray together each evening, and it's been really fruitful for our family so far. 

Every night either before or after dinner we sit down at the table and light our advent wreath.  As we light the candle, we sing the first verse of Oh Come Oh Come Emmanuel.  Then, Brad leads us in an opening prayer and we read a chapter out of the Gospel of Luke.  It works out perfectly because there are 24 chapters of Luke (and 24 days until Christmas! It's like it was meant to be :)).   We finish our prayers with a short meditation and then kinda sing the Salve Regina -- we end up giggling while we sing because neither of us knows it well and one of us almost always messes it up ha!

Also, on our own time and over the course of a few days, we read this book as a companion to our Gospel reading. 

Anyway, just thought I'd share!  And I am curious to know what other families are doing so let me know if you have any favorite traditions. I sincerely hope you have a peaceful few weeks preparing your heart as we approach the greatest day in history, the birth of Our Savior!