Keeping December Merry and Still Getting Lessons Done

Our first Christmas after we began homeschooling was very blah. In fact, that is all I remember about it — that feeling that it was so. much. less. than it should have been. I think part of that is due to the fact that, during the early years of our married and family life, we always traveled at Christmas time. We participated whatever was happening in the home we were visiting, rather than initiating anything ourselves.

That’s fine, as far as it goes, but when we were on our own, we found that even though we’d been married for seven years and had four children, we had no traditions of our own.

Our second year of homeschooling was a year of recovery for us as my husband had almost died during the summer months. I vowed that Christmas was going to be different. I wasn’t going to let it be blah ever again.

Now, mind you, I don’t mean expensive or complicated. I’ve never had the budget for expensive, and I can’t ever pull off complicated. The solution was so simple when it hit me: I’d start with a special December Circle Time!

These days, we call it DecemberTerm, and it’s the highlight of our year. We already have the time set aside, first thing after breakfast in the morning. What better way to begin each day of the season than with singing Advent and Christmas songs, doing Jesse Tree activities, and reading old favorite Christmas books?

It really is a delight.

For the first three weeks of December, which is most of Advent, we still do all of our AO readings. We still do Latin and math, though we do cut things like grammar, Shakespeare, and Plutarch. After that, we take three weeks off: Christmas week through the week of Epiphany. (I don’t plan again for school until after Epiphany.) I love the rhythm of it — of Advent as a sort of transition, and then the Christmas season as a total break from lessons — as a season of festivity.

Today, I thought I’d share about this year’s DecemberTerm, and a couple other things we’re doing.

DecemberTerm

First, I’ll show you my plans:

Click here to download a copy of these plans as a PDF.

Here are my resources for pulling off these plans:

• Prayer: a combination of Jesus, Light of the World: Praying the Scriptures through Advent and our Prayer Box.
• Scripture Reading: these readings correspond to our Jesse Tree book, and click here to download a PDF chart of all the passages and corresponding story titles.
• Jesse Tree Book: we use Geraldine McCaughrean’s The Jesse Tree, and this is the book the above Scripture PDF corresponds to.
• Ornaments: we made our own {just using index paper, yarn, packing tape, markers, etc.}, based upon the ornaments carved in our Jesse Tree book.
• Memory Work:
  • Passage: Luke 2:1-20
  • Poem: On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity by John Milton
  • Songs: The Ditchling Carol and Sussex Carol
• Weekly Work:
  • Books:
    • The Christmas Mystery by Jostein Gaarder
    • A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
    • The Lion in the Box by Marguerite de Angeli
  • Rembrandt selections: click to download as printable PDFs
• Handel’s Messiah:
  • Devotional guide

Other Changes

Even though we are continuing with normal lessons, there are a few other changes I make as we begin to get into the season. For example, I schedule days for Christmas baking. Also, instead of our regular handicrafts, we make Christmas ornaments, which we later give as gifts to extended family. I haven’t officially decided what our ornaments will be this year, but I’m leaning toward glue-based ornaments because I think my two younger children will enjoy them. Last year, I aimed the style of ornament at the older children, and I want to return to a few of the simpler, younger ones before all of them are too old for it.

Getting Lessons Done

This year’s Average Day Chart has really worked for us, so I won’t be tinkering with it. Fridays will still be our enrichment day, but it’ll have more of a Christmas preparation focus with time for making more ornaments, baking, or even going to our local Children’s Nutcracker.

So while we change some things, we don’t change everything during Advent because, to us, Advent is waiting for Christmas. The celebrating part — full-blown festivity of it all — begins on Christmas Eve.

What are some of your favorite Advent or Christmas traditions?