We Light the Candles: Devotions Related to Family Use of the Advent Wreath

The prayers are certainly kid friendly and cutsie, but they have absolutely no connection with the traditional Advent wreath. Clearly written by someone completely unacquainted with liturgical worship. By week 2, you have the wise men already coming and you're supposed to sing "We 3 Kings" as a family (um... Epiphany anyone?) On Week 3, you're singing "O, little town of Bethlehem." There's no explanation about the pink candle with any connection to Mary, it's just Christmas as usual. The whole point of Advent is it is a waiting and preparation time before Christmas. In these prayers and songs, Christmas has come and gone in Week 1, Epiphany is Week 2, and by Week 4 you're in Pentecost and talking about the Holy Spirit. It feels like someone who is Baptist trying to adapt what is a traditional liturgical Church's practice.

Excellently written devotions. Unfortunately, they're written for specific days of the week (2016), and don't coincide to 2017. There was no indication for what year it designed for. I renumbered, but it's synchronized for the true (church) advent calendar - not the first 25 days of December. I'll definitely use this devotional, again, but I'm going to redo it, so it works for every year...

This is our second year using this booklet to guide our family Advent devotionals. Our kids are young (4 & 6) and this booklet works great for us (as it did last year when they were even younger). The devotionals are quite short and simple but not in any way dumbed down. Our kids easily comprehend the lessons and the scriptures. A song or part of a song is included in every devotional, and we enthusiastically sing along with a version of each song we like on a CD. Or, we sometimes choose to listen to a different song than the one suggested (I highly recommend Casting Crowns version of I Heard the Bells On Christmas Day). Our kids especially love how each candle is named (the first candle lit is the candle of promise, next is the candle of light, etc.). I love how our daily Advent devotionals keeps our focus on why we celebrate Christmas. We all love the cozy atmosphere created by sitting together around the warm glow of candles after dinner. I believe we are making wonderful memories with the guidance of this little booklet.

i really like the readings. they where on point and well fitting. the prayers where a bit short, wished they had a bit more to them.we skipped the singing part, didnt quite fit with dinner time. the price was very fair and we enjoyed the book but i am not sure it will be the book we make a tradition of.

We bought this little booklet since it was suggested to go with our wreath and candles. It was super neat to do daily reflexiona and prayers with our three children under the age of 6. It includes bible passages, prayers, reflexions and a hymn to be sung at the end. Will use it next Advent again!

we bought this book along with advent candles. my kids ages 9 and 8 were both willing to read the daily reading at the dinner table, and the liked to light the candle, and my younger ones liked to blow it out. turned out to be a nice enjoyable thing to do. our family is usually complete chaos at the dinner table. this worked surprisingly well. :)

A little disappointed at some of the cheesy made-up stories in it about Advent, but liked the prayers, the weekly themes, and the song selections. If you have very young children it's probably fine - but with our teenager I skipped a lot of the goofy stuff that took away from Advent, in my opinion.

This book is written for family devotions, but we used it in a church school. It adapted quite well. Family activities became school-friends activities. The focus of the book was children within the family, as expected, and they responded well. The suggested song verses were fitting and familiar, but we sometimes used different ones. This is a simple book. Little additional preparation is needed to lead thought-provoking daily worship at home during Advent.

book arrived in great condition. very pleased.

I have a much better one by Max Lucado