Our children are eager participants in the Advent season. It fills my heart with delight to see how much they anticipate our family practices throughout the season. They don't forget and make sure we don't either!

We use an Advent calendar to help us count the days to Christmas. In the past, I've used a simple calendar with little chocolates and a short Scripture passage behind a small paper door (like this one). It wasn't fancy, but it was a fun after-dinner tradition.

I decided to get a little more sophisticated this year. We're using The Story of Christmas. This charming calendar set contains 24 miniature storybooks to read each night in December until Christmas. Each storybook is a different part of the Nativity story.

The little books have colorful pictures and are durable, which makes them great for young children to look at and explore. The short stories are a perfect length for older children to read quietly or aloud to the family. The books even have a gold cord attached so you can hang them up after you read them. For that, we bought a cute little Christmas tree to sit on our upright piano.

Of course, my kids would never let me dispense with the chocolate! I'll have a tin filled with chocolates sitting right next to the tree so they can have a piece while they listen to the story.

The Advent calendar is a fun, easy Advent practice that you can do with your kids or grandkids. I promise: they'll look forward to it each night.