Craft Project: Advent Paper Chain

There are many ways to count down to Christmas. There are songs about it. Retail has take a cue from the season and transformed it into a list of shopping deals for the holiday season. Each year at church, we take the month of December off from creating crafts about the children's bible stories and make Christmas themed crafts. The Sunday before the month of December, we usually make an Advent. This year, it was a paper chain.

Approximate Time: less than 30 minutes

Supplies:

• computer
• printer
• colored paper
• scissors or paper trimmer
• stapler or tape

Instructions:

Making a traditional paper chain is easy. You can choose your colors of paper or just alternate between green and red. Printing our list out on the computer first, we copied it onto colored paper and then cut it into strips utilizing either a paper trimmer or scissors. The chain pieces were joined with a stapler but tape could also be used. At the end of the chain was the description applied as a chain piece.

So what am I taking about? Each chain contains the name of a bible verse to be read each night as a count down to Christmas. The verses chosen relate to the holiday's theme. Here are the verses we used and the description follows:

• Luke 1:11-17
• Malachi 3:1
• Isaiah 9:6-7
• Luke 1:26-33
• Matthew 1:18-19
• Isaiah 7:14
• Matthew 1:20-25
• Luke 1:39-56
• Luke 2:1-7
• Luke 2:8-14
• Luke 2:15-20
• Exodus13:2
• Luke 2:21-24
• Matthew 2:1-5
• Micah 5:2
• Matthew 2:7-12
• Luke 2:25-35
• Luke 2:36-38
• Hosea 11:1
• Matthew 2:13-15
• Jeremiah 31:15
• Matthew 2:16-18
• Matthew 2:19-23
• Luke 2:39-40

This advent chain contains 24 Bible verses to look up about the birth of Jesus. In the month of December, if you remove one each day and read the bible verse, you will have a count down advent activity and in the end, you and your child will have looked up and read 24 Bible verses.

Highlight the bible verses, enlarge them to 24 point type and center them on the page. Then print them out on your computer. They will be ready to copy and cut into strips.

By Janet from Carmel, IN