For the past 10 years rituals have become increasingly important to me and my family. We celebrate several throughout the year and are always seeking to create new ones, helping us to be grounded in the cycle of life. Below I have described some of the advent rituals that we do.

Each evening we do the following:
1. We light the advent candles
2. We say an Advent liturgy together, the third week is written below and the response includes actions

God our life and our breath.
We witness your coming
In the humility of service,
The poor and marginalized,
The new born child,
In the heart of each person we meet,
And in the beauty of all creation.

We watch, wait and witness the mystery of your conception in us,
(The response)
We are waiting
We are watching
We are witnessing

3. We read a chapter from the Christmas Mystery by Jostein Gaarder
4. Advent Calendar – One of us receives a present from the advent calendar and reads out the meditation for the day. (10 years ago I created two big stars with 24 hooks on in which we hang small gifts and a meditation)

Other rituals used throughout the season include:
Winter Solstice – We mark this event with friends. We celebrate the start of a new solar year with fire, lanterns, yule log, eating, drinking and singing around the Christmas tree
Love Lists – An idea I picked up last year from Richard Louv in ‘The web of life’. This is a simple idea where we write love lists for each other which is a list of 5-10 things that we love and have appreciated about the other during the last year. We read them out to each other on Christmas Eve.