The following is a guest post from Adrianne Redding. Adrianne is currently studying Political Science at John Brown University in Siloam Springs, Arkansas.

Neither of my parents is really big on traditions, but for Christmas there is one tradition that our whole family loves.

My mother became a Christian in college, and because her Christian friends were Lutheran, she became one also. My father was raised Baptist. When they married, my mother brought the Lutheran tradition of an Advent wreath into the home.

Every one of us children was raised on it—it didn’t matter how old we were and what our bedtime was. When the Christmas season came around, no one went to bed until after we prayed, sang two carols, and Daddy read Scripture.

Now that I am in college, I don’t come home until a few days before Christmas, and I miss most of the Advent season. That month between Thanksgiving and Christmas was hard my freshman year away—I missed home more than when I first left home in August.

The Advent wreath tradition at my family is something that I look forward to when I come home on break. I will carry a host of special memories of my family because of this, and am so grateful that my parents instituted it in their first year of marriage.

This is a tradition that I plan on bringing into my own home, and next Christmas one way my husband and I will be celebrating Christmas is with our own Advent wreath. It will be exciting to continue my family’s tradition and also make our own.