-
Lucy Soltau, youth ministry director at St. Denis Parish in Menlo Park, helps out at her parish’s family Advent workshop Dec. 2. Soltau said the event focuses on helping families prepare “for the Advent journey.” (Photos by Nicholas Wolfram Smith/Catholic San Francisco)
December 6, 2018
Nicholas Wolfram Smith
Groups of children sat together cutting paper and coloring ornaments to make Christmas decorations at an Advent workshop Dec. 2 at St. Denis Parish to help families mark the new liturgical season at home.
Lucy Soltau, the director of religious education and youth ministry at the Menlo Park parish, told Catholic San Francisco that “there’s no Santa stuff” at the workshop. Instead, her focus is on helping families prepare themselves “for the Advent journey.”
The parish offered arts and crafts connected to Advent for kids. Children cut brightly colored paper into strips that could be assembled one day at a time into a decorative chain, while others colored symbols of Jesus’ ancestors to make Jesse tree ornaments. Soltau said the workshop “gets kids involved in a way that’s fun for them” while showing that “Christmas is about more than shopping.”
Soltau said younger children like the hands-on activities, while older families appreciate things like the Advent wreath supplies, a list of ideas for celebrating Advent, and the Little Blue Book, a daily Advent devotional published by the Diocese of Saginaw, Michigan.
Teaching children about Advent and Christmas while their minds are focused on presents can be a challenge. Some retail forecasts anticipate up to $1.1 trillion in sales during the 2018 holiday season, a sign of how strongly consumerism has been attached to a religious season.
For parents, that is just another part of the complexity of the world.
Jennifer Prindiville told Catholic San Francisco that “the Christmas season is like a diamond, it has lots of facets.” One part is commercial, she said, “and a big part of it is religious.”
Sitting at a table with her husband Mike while their children Desmond and Rowan colored their own Jesse Tree ornaments, she said her children enjoyed the creativity of making ornaments, and “want to learn more about the Advent season acts of giving and loving.”
“The donuts are also a draw,” Prindiville said.
Heidi von Briel, whose children range from college age to grade school, said it can be hard for children to recognize the “true meaning” of Christmas, since good behavior and gifts are so heavily emphasized.
What helps her family focus on Christ is their nativity set, she said. The three Wise Men move each day closer to the creche, arriving on Jan. 6, the solemnity of Epiphany. Because of that, she said it shows her family that Christmas continues after the gifts are exchanged.
“It’s a time for real reflection,” von Briel said.
As Soltau moved between tables, helping children with their crafts, several were eager to finish up their activities all at once rather than slowly assemble them throughout Advent.
“That’s the hardest part of Advent: It’s all about the waiting,” she told them.
Children at St. Denis work on coloring their own Jesse Tree ornaments. The ornaments symbolize Jesus’ ancestors and significant events in salvation history.