Sharing Advent: A Calmer Season for Expat Families and Their Kids
All is calm, All is bright.
That’s what this time of year is supposed to bring. We imagine Advent as a season of sacred reflection, cozy evenings, with candles glowing while we slow down and share meaningful traditions together with our children.
But for many globally mobile families raising Third Culture Kids, this season often becomes something very different. Instead of slowing, we add… and add… and add. Advent calendars, special devotionals, community events, school performances. End-of-year testing, travel preparations, even sometimes major goodbyes and transitions.
It might all be meaningful, or even beautiful, but it’s a lot. So, the extra energy of the season can build without anywhere to go.
When Advent Raises the Energy Instead of Calming It
For kids in expat families, whose routines already shift more than average throughout the year, these additional layers of excitement can push their nervous systems into overdrive.
Where we hope to spend more time in the Green Zone of regulation, thinking clearly, playing peacefully, enjoying calm conversations, we often see children sliding more frequently into the wild, edgy Yellow Zone, or even the explosive Red Zone, where big behaviors and shouty meltdowns happen.
So how do we create a calmer Advent season, one with fewer fits and more of that Green-Zone where we have the capacity to contemplate and celebrate the season as holy.
Surprisingly, I think the answer comes from toddlers.
Think Like a Toddler Learning to Share
During Advent, the number of hours in the day doesn’t magically expand, but the number of activities we try to fit into those hours does. It can feel like toddlers swarming a soccer ball. If we want to introduce and enjoy new traditions, then our time, like toys, needs to be shared.
When toddlers learn to share, we give them a few basic strategies:
Turn-taking
Doing different things at the same time
Compromising by doing the activity in a new way
Dividing something into smaller pieces
These concepts translate beautifully into how international families can approach Advent.
Let’s look at how.
1. Turn-Taking: Make Space by Subtracting, Not Just Adding
If we add something to Advent, we likely need to also subtract. Something else needs to wait its turn.
Ask yourself:
What can take a turn later—next week after the performance, next month after Christmas, next term, or after travel calms down?
This might mean pausing a year-round routine, shelving a hobby temporarily, or saying no to an invitation you’d normally say yes to. Turn-taking is not about quitting, or slacking off, or giving up something you value; it’s about giving each activity its proper space so nothing overwhelms you or your child’s nervous system.
2. Dividing Into Smaller Pieces: Break Advent Into Manageable Chunks
Many Advent activities can be just as meaningful, maybe even more meaningful, when enjoyed in smaller doses. For example, if your child has end-of-the-year exams, projects, or performances, these will interrupt all your best efforts at doing a daily Advent activity the same way each day. Here your skills from traveling as a family internationally can kick in. You might need to find backup options for how to do, for example Advent readings, in smaller chunks when - like packing snacks on a long international trip.
What would it look like to enjoy Advent in smaller, re-arrangeable pieces so there’s still time and space for the essentials?
For example:
Instead of doing a daily Advent activity, choose three meaningful ones per week.
Cut a long devotional into a shorter reflection, or break it up into chunks throughout the day.
Attend part of an event instead of the whole evening.
Small pieces are still shared pieces.
3. Compromising: Create Calmer Versions of Advent Traditions
Some activities don’t need to be removed, they just need to be cooled down. Ask yourself, What is a more serene version of this tradition? If we’re already near the ceiling of our daily capacity, maybe there’s a way you can adapt it just for today.
Maybe that means:
The Advent calendar ritual in silent mode.
Maybe listening to the Advent readings instead of taking turns reading.
A candlelit story instead of a holiday outing.
A slow breakfast liturgy instead of an evening activity.
When Advent rituals can shift toward calming rather than stimulating, they can become a way to calm down after more nervous-system-stimulating, exciting events, so this is especially important for evening-time rituals.
4. Remembering the Nervous System Rule: What Goes Up Must Come Down
Children, and adults, need time to wind down. The more stimulating the day, the more important that calm-down descent time becomes.
I often say that just like an airplane needs 45 minutes to descend safely, most nervous systems need that amount of time to shift from fully engaged in life to ready for sleep. When we try to rush bedtime, we actually increase energy rather than reduce it.
Children’s downtime should not be squashed at the end of an already overstimulating day. They need it protected so they can return to the Green Zone and get to sleep. (And parents need that to happen for their own down time!)
This might require negotiating with anyone who’s planning events with you or co-parenting with you:
What time evening activities truly end
When screens go off
How long the bedtime routine lasts
What quiet rituals help everyone land smoothly
It can be tempting to try to hurry bedtime after we’ve been out late for a fun event, but the plane still needs time to land. Don’t squash the bedtime routine, plan time for it, and accept that starting it later means ending it later.
A Shared Advent, Not a Stressed Advent
Remember, When we add, we must subtract.
When energy goes up, it needs time to come down.
For Third Culture Kids and the families raising them, Advent can already be a complicated season, filled with longing, excitement, grief, joy, transitions, and busyness.
But when we remember the simple rules of sharing: turn-taking, dividing, compromising, and making space, we create an Advent that feels calmer, more connected and leaves our hearts more spacious as we seek to be filled by the Spirit with the peace and hope we celebrate and await at this time of year.
