Like so many people, I struggle with the concept of religion. On the one hand, because of my own haphazard and varied childhood religious experiences, I think it is important to have a community. On the other hand, because of my own haphazard and varied childhood religious experiences, organized religion sometimes gives me the willies and I recognize that a person can be a member of a close-knit non-religious community. As a result, we actually belong to a church, but don't attend very often.

This time of the year brings my personal religious struggles to the forefront. Which elements of the season do I stress for my young child? What traditions do we want to develop as a family?

A friend of mine said she started to feel like the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas was just a big blur. She didn't stop to appreciate any of it - it was like an out of control freight train. So she decided to make it a time of "watchful waiting". She developed an advent calendar unlike the ones you can buy at Walgreen's where you  open a little door and get a piece of chocolate. In her calendar, she tries to get her children to focus on giving to others through the use of individual Advent Banks. She lists a holiday activity or craft that the family can do together. And she's included a Bible verse to read that she thinks is relevant to the season.

For example, the first three of her Advent activities are these:

1. M)  Put up outside decorations – Mark 13:33: Take ye heed, watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is. – Put in 5 cents for each clock in your house.

2. T)  – Decorate Advent giving banks – Psalm 80:19: Turn us again, O LORD God of hosts, cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved. – Listen carefully to the Christmas music on the radio! Put in 10 cents each time you hear ‘Away in a Manger’, ‘We Three Kings’, or ‘Angels We Have Heard on High’.

3. W) Put up Christmas tree and lights – Mark 13:24-26: But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, 25: And the stars of heaven shall fall, and the powers that are in heaven shall be shaken. 26: And then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory. – Are all your lights shining? Put in 5 cents per unlit light.

I'm certainly nowhere near as organized as she, but I have tried to take some of the spirit of her concept. I've never done an Advent calendar before, but this year Piper and I cut out a picture of a Christmas tree. Each morning we cut out an ornament on which is written the number of days until Christmas. She gets to glue that to her paper Christmas tree.

I also try to do some sort of craft with her every day. Well, who am I kidding? She DEMANDS a craft every day now. She's so into crafting that the other night when she woke up crying and I went to comfort her, she was mumbling, "Where's the glitter? Where's the glitter?"

So we've been doing craft activities like cutting out paper snowflakes to decorate our storm door. We've made red and green paper chains to put around the inner doors. We've made hand and footprint angels. We've made potato stamps and stamped paint all over brown packing paper to make wrapping paper. Frankly, I'm running out of ideas. Simply coloring a page doesn't cut it anymore. "That's not a craft, Mama!"

We've also tried to do other activities as a family like decorating the tree and driving around to look at lights. We haven't actually been to church this season, although I suppose we probably will.

Ultimately I just hope I'm creating some good memories for her.