I’m super excited to share with you this idea from my married daughter. She came up with the above Christmas Advent Candle Set that is safe to use around little children. It’s a wonderful alternative for the Immanuel Wreath that I use, as shown below.

This Immanuel Wreath from David Butler and Emily Belle Freeman has the names of Christ printed around the base, one for each hole, and one hole each for the first 25 days of December. While indeed lovely, it is definitely a fire hazard! I don’t think I would use it if I had under-5s around. I would be afraid to even turn my head!

The paper star lanterns act as candle holders, although her photo doesn’t show any candles inside the lanterns yet. Then she uses salt dough and battery-operated tea candles. The video showing how to make the paper stars is below. I asked her why she uses 5 paper star lanterns instead of 4, like many traditional advent candle holders do. This is what she said:

“It was just random. It was how many lanterns I ended up with. But it was also nice that 5 divides into 25 so that the spaces between them are even. I’d like to do the liturgical advent with 3 purples and 1 pink candles on Sundays someday. I also wanted more than 4 lanterns to get closer to a rainbow effect.”

I love having a candle advent! We light the day’s candle during dinner, put the little card with the name and scripture next to the candle, and then read aloud the scripture that goes with the name of Christ. Then on Christmas Eve we light all of them! (We do two on Christmas Eve.) On Christmas Eve, I invite family members to talk about what name of Christ has resonated the most with each of them lately. This activity helps our Christmas be so Christ-centered. I love it.

You can get the names of Christ download from Emily and David over here. After we read aloud the scripture we also talk about how we see Christ in that name/role. Then I read aloud a Christmas story from one of my many collections of stories I’ve gathered over the years. (You can get some Christmas stories from my Family Devotionals ebook over here, in the December section, under the stories heading.)

If you want more family Christmas tradition ideas, go here to my new family traditions site, and scroll down under the “December” heading to the section that says, “Activities: About Hanukkah and Christmas.” I hope you have a Merry Christ-centered Christmas!