Bible Journaling Through Advent with Unwrapping the Greatest Gift by Ann Voskamp

I love the Advent season. It is such a special time that we can quiet our minds and open our hearts to the message of redemption for the whole world. In our household we begin on December 1st with a Jesse tree and use it to trace the lineage of the long expected Messiah.

Last year was the first time we used Ann Voskamp's beautiful book Unwrapping the Greatest Gift: A Family Celebration of Christmas. We used the ornaments download that corresponds with the book and crafted our own.

I collect coasters throughout the year (like the ones you get at restaurants) so I wind up with assorted shapes and sizes. For these particular ornaments I put a basecoat of black paint on the coaster and then lightly put a coat of copper paint over the top so some of the black peeked through.

I used colored pencils and markers to color the picture then cut it out and glued it on. To make it more durable I put a coat of varnish over the whole thing. To finish it off I added some decorative copper brads and a twine hanger.

This year we wanted to again use Unwrapping the Greatest Gift but I wanted to do something a bit different. I have been using my Journaling Bible to do a bit of Bible Art Journaling throughout the year and I decided that I would like to do that with the Advent readings from the book.

To do this, I again downloaded and printed off the ornament sheets that go with the book. By the way these come in two different sizes - 4 inch which is 4 per page and 2 1/2 inch which is 6 per page. I chose the 4 inch size.

I cut out the ornaments and then rounded the corners. I used colored pencils to decorate the ornaments and then I attached them to the Bible page with a strip of washi tape.

Since this is something that we do each day of Advent as a family I certainly didn't want to leave the little ones out. For those that don't do Bible Art Journaling I printed out the coloring pages that go along with Unwrapping the Greatest Gift.

Each night as we sit down to read the story for the day I pass out the coloring sheets and crayons and let the little ones color. This helps them listen and sit still plus it plants seeds that I hope will blossom in years to come.

If you are looking for a doable activity for this Advent season I would encourage you to get the book and download the resources. If you are reading this and it is past December first . . . don't fret . . . just start with the current day and go from there. You can always catch up later. Remember the season isn't about going and doing it's about quieting our hearts and minds and unwrapping the greatest Gift!