All Advent
Prayers & Devotions
- Jesse Tree: There are lots of versions of this. They use various combinations of symbols representing the family line of Jesus, key biblical figures, or other events from salvation history. Regardless of which symbols are included, each day one symbol is reflected on (usually with a Scripture reading and/or prayer), and an ornament with the corresponding symbol is hung on the “tree”. The “tree” can be a tabletop tree, a branch in a vase, a poster, a jewelry tree, a clothesline-style display, etc.
- Blessing of a Manger or Nativity Scene Printable
- Advent Wreath: The circle, which never ends, teaches us that God and the joy of eternity never end. The evergreen, which never changes, reminds us that God’s love never changes. The purple recalls the penance with which purifies our hearts, and the candlelight, which increases each week, tells us that Christ is the Light of the World; we must not be like the darkness which “grasped it not” (John 1:5). The prayers ask God to stir up in us a great desire for His Coming, to strengthen us so we shall be ready.
- Penance: Try to receive the sacrament of penance during the Advent season to prepare for the coming of Christ “for it is not possible coherently to celebrate the birth of Him ‘Who saves His people from their sins’ without some effort to overcome sin in one’s own life.” (Directory on Popular Piety, #105)
- Pray that God will help you remember to notice all the symbolism of the season to help you stay focused on Him and not get discouraged.
- Blessing of a Christmas Tree Printable
Activities
- Advent Calendar: Look for a Catholic one with that acknowledges saint/feast days.
- Manger Hay: One piece of “straw” (raffia, yarn, etc.) is placed in an empty manger for each good deed done or resolution kept during Advent. On Christmas morning, a baby Jesus figure is placed in the (hopefully) nicely-padded manger to show the usefulness of these gifts of self and Christ’s pleasure in receiving them.
- Visit a living nativity
- Make a paper creche.
- Interact with your nativity scene and use it as a teaching tool.
- Gather up all your Christmas picture books and wrap/number them- one for each day leading up to Christmas. Use your calendar to help you figure out the best one to read on each day. The kids will be excited to unwrap them, and it will remind you to take a little time out to read to them.
- Make sure there are hymns and good religious music on your playlist.
- Christkindls: This is kind-of like secret Santas, but with a spiritual significance. Choose a secret “Christkindl” (or “Christ Child”) for whom you will perform little acts of love- such as prayers, small gifts, sacrifices, notes, or pieces of candy throughout Advent.
- Jesse Tree Ornament Exchange: Making your own set of Jesse Tree ornaments can be tedious. Make it fun (and get a sentimental set of ornaments made by your friends) by hosting an exchange.
Charity
- Donate gifts to an Angel Tree progam.
- Fill shoeboxes with gifts for needy children.
Stir-Up Sunday
First Sunday of Advent
Activities
- The traditional Collect of the last Sunday of the Church year began “Stir up the wills of Thy faithful people, we beseech Thee, O Lord…”- thus the day became known as “Stir-Up Sunday”. This day is now set aside for Christ the King, so Stir-Up Sunday can now be the first Sunday of Advent.
- It is traditional to “stir up” a fruitcake, plum pudding, or mincemeat on this day, and then put it away to age until Christmas.
- For added fun, mix in little symbolic tokens for your family to find when they eat it, like a coin (wealth in the new year) or a horseshoe charm (good luck).
St. Andrew, Apostle
November 30
Prayers & Devotions
- St. Andrew Novena/Christmas Anticipation Prayer: This is neither a novena nor related to St. Andrew in any way, except that it is tradition to say it 15x each day leading up to Christmas starting on his feast day.
Foods & Symbols
- Shortbread cookies (since he is patron saint of Scotland)
- Fish (since he was a fisherman)
- Lace cookies (since he is patron saint of lace-makers- probably because he made fishing nets)
Charity
- Give to the food pantry or volunteer at a soup kitchen (since he was the one who pointed out the loaves and fishes)
Saint Nicholas
December 6
Prayers & Devotions
- Reconciliation (since he was a confessor and this is why he knows all the children’s good/bad deeds)
- Watch for information about the special reconciliation service at MOQ on December 15th.
Foods & Symbols
- In Eastern Europe/Low Countries, St. Nicholas visits the children wearing a white robe with a mitre (bishop’s hat) and a crozier (bishop’s staff). He asks them to recite prayers or bits of catechism and gives them cookies, apples, nuts, chocolate, and holy pictures.
- Chocolate gold coins: He heard of a poor widower who was facing having to sell his three daughters off to a “house of ill-repute”, and secretly threw three bags of gold into their open window to provide dowries for the girls so they could be married instead.
- Candy canes: These symbolize his crozier (and if you turn them upside-down they make a “J” for Jesus).
- Speculaas (or Speculoos): These spice cookies are traditional in northern Europe.
- Lebkuchen: These honey cakes are traditional in Germany.
- Mulled wine: In Holland, it’s called “bischopswyn” (bishop’s wine).
Activities
- A Dutch custom is for children to put out their shoes or hang their stockings from the mantel on the vigil of this feast, and, if they have been good, find in them the next morning St. Nicholas cookies. Children who have been naughty get straw — a gentle reminder that Advent is a time to strive hard to be very good so that we will be ready for Jesus when He comes.
- Turn Chocolate Santas into the Real St. Nicholas!
Charity
- St. Nicholas did his charitable works secretly- do one hidden act of kindness in imitation of this saint.
Saint Ambrose
December 7
Prayers & Devotions
- Lectio Divina: Ambrose introduced the practice of lectio divina in the West. All of his preaching and writings relied on his prayerful listening to the Word of God.
- Prayer of St. Ambrose
Foods & Symbols
- Honey: The legend is that when Ambrose was an infant, his father found his face covered with bees, but he was unharmed. This was taken as a sign of his future eloquence, and he is known as the “Honey-tongued Doctor” because the sign eventually proved to be accurate.
- Italian food (since he was bishop of Milan)
- Ambrosia salad
Activities
- Make and/or decorate a Christ candle to replace the purple and pink candles in your Advent wreath during Christmas (Ambrose is patron of candlemakers)
- Take a Chi Rho symbol printed on tissue paper, position it on a white pillar candle, and use a large piece of wax paper to wrap around the candle and hold the tissue paper image in place. Use a hair dryer to warm the area where the image is until the edges of the tissue paper disappear and the image darkens, then peel the wax paper off.
- If you’re using a candle in a glass jar instead of a pillar, you can still use the tissue paper Chi Rho- just brush or spray with a light coat of glue and stick it to the glass.
Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary
December 8
Prayers & Devotions
- Mary as the Immaculate Conception is the patroness of the United States. Make a virtual pilgrimage to the Basilica of the National Shrine of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, America’s patronal church (also the largest Roman Catholic church in North America, and one of the ten largest in the world).
Foods & Symbols
- White foods (powdered sugar cookies, chicken alfredo, cauliflower, white bread, rice, etc.)
- Wear white
- Moravian Spritz or gingerbread cookies: They remind us of the passage in the Book of Sirach (formerly Ecclesiasticus), 24:20-21 that describes Mary smelling like spices.
Activities
- Use a coloring page to help explain to children that we are celebrating the Immaculate Conception of Mary, not Jesus.
- Clean-up day: God prepared Mary to make her ready to welcome Jesus, so we prepare ourselves and our homes in similar way.
- Mary candle: Cover the Christ candle you made on St. Ambrose Day (or any plain white candle) with a piece of white cloth or lace (symbolizing Mary’s soul without stain), perhaps with a blue ribbon tie. This mantle symbolizes Our Lady, who carried the baby Jesus under her heart until He was born. The candle (which represents Christ, the Light of the world) remains covered all through Advent, until the veil is removed to reveal the newborn Child at Christmas.
Charity
- In Spain, this is a day to honor mothers. Do something nice for a mother today.
Saint Juan Diego
December 9
Our Lady of Guadalupe
December 12
Prayers & Devotions
- Read the story of Juan Diego and Our Lady of Guadalupe
- Display an image of the tilma
- More info about the tilma
Foods & Symbols
- Light an Our Lady of Guadalupe votive candle (these tall, glass jar candles with Our Lady of Guadalupe on them can be found at the Dollar Tree/Target/most grocery stores)
- Decorate with roses (like the ones that spilled out of St. Juan Diego’s tilma)
- Mexican food
Activities
- Pinata (traditional seven-pointed ones represent the seven deadly sins)
Our Lady of Loreto
December 10
Prayers & Devotions
- Pray the Litany of Loreto for a partial indulgence.
- Learn the remarkable story of this feast.
- Meditate on the various titles of Our Lady presented in the Litany of Loreto.
Foods & Symbols
- Italian food (Loreto, where Mary’s house is now, is in Italy)
Activities
- Make gingerbread houses (this feast is all about Mary’s house and the symbolism of being a home for Jesus)
- Play with paper or balsa-wood airplanes (Our Lady of Loreto is the patron of air travel since the story of traditionally involves her house being flown through the air by angels).
Gaudete/Bambinelli Sunday
Third Sunday of Advent
Foods & Symbols
Activities
- Bring the baby Jesus figures from your nativity scenes to be blessed by Fr. Byrd at Mass.
Saint Lucy
December 13
Foods & Symbols
- Save eyeball candies from Halloween and serve a pair of them on a plate at a meal. Diocletian tried to have Lucy executed for her beliefs- by burning her alive (she wouldn’t burn or stop speaking out), stabbing a spear through her throat (to no effect), and gouging her eyes out (her sight was miraculously restored). She was only able to die after receiving the Last Rites. Reflecting on this should help you feel a little less sorry for yourself about all the work you still have to do for Christmas.
- Swedish Lussebullar (Lucy Buns)- Saffron buns in a shape that resembles a pair of eyeballs.
- Make an easier version by unrolling refrigerator canned cinnamon rolls and reshaping them into a backward “S” shape, then baking as usual.
- Italian food (she was Sicilian)
- Whole grains: In Sicily, a famine ended on her feast day when ships loaded with grain entered the harbor. (Cuccia is traditional- boiled wheat berries, often mixed with ricotta and honey, but you could also just do sandwiches on whole-grain bread.)
Activities
- Swedish-style Procession: Choose a girl to be the “St. Lucy Bride” in a white gown (symbolizing virginity) with a red sash (symbolizing martyrdom) and a crown of candles on her head. (While helping persecuted Christians hiding in the catacombs, St. Lucy wore a wreath of candles on her head in order to have her hands free to bring with her as many supplies as possible). Just before dawn, the St. Lucy Bride leads a procession of girls (in similar dress), each holding a candle (symbolizing the fire that refused to take St. Lucy’s life). The procession sings a St. Lucy song and serves special St. Lucy day rolls (see Swedish Lussebullar above) to the rest of the household.
- Fire up your Christmas lights or drive around and look at your neighbors’ light displays: St. Lucy Day was on the shortest/darkest day of the year on the old calendar. Her life was a light in the darkness and points to the Light of Christ coming into the world. Even her name comes from the Latin “lux” or “light”.
- Lucy Fire (bonfire) with incense.
- St. Lucy’s Wheat: In Croatia and Hungary, wheat seeds are planted in a dish, and the new shoots remind us of the new life born in Bethlehem. (Also that the wheat had to die to be born again.) On Christmas, the new shoots may be tied with a ribbon and put near the Christmas tree or nativity.
Charity
- Take treats (traditionally, ginger cookies) to elderly, sing, and distribute small gifts.
- Donate used rx/reading/sunglasses to charity (because of the story of her eyes being gouged out).
Saint John of the Cross
December 14
Prayers & Devotions
- Read his Advent Poem.
- Three of his works, Ascent of Mount Carmel, Dark Night of the Soul and Spiritual Canticle of the Soul and the Bridegroom Christ are available free to read online at the Christian Classics Ethereal Library online.
- Enroll in the Brown Scapular Confraternity.
- Read his The Incarnation.
- Listen to his The Incarnation and The Nativity.
O Wisdom (Sapienta)
December 17
Foods & Symbols
- Symbols: oil lamp; open book or scroll; dove (Holy Spirit); all-seeing eye
- “Brain food”: blueberries, tomatoes, dark chocolate, avocados, eggs
O Lord & Ruler (Adonai)
December 18
Foods & Symbols
- Symbols: burning bush, stone tablets, tent/tabernacle in desert
O Root of Jesse (Radix Jesse)
December 19
Foods & Symbols
- Symbols: flower, root with flowering stem, stump with roots
- Root vegetables: carrots, potatoes, sweet potatoes or yams
- Root beer
O Key of David (Clavis David)
December 20
Foods & Symbols
- Symbols: key, broken chains
- Unshelled nuts with a nutcracker: Without the “key” (nutcracker) you cannot get inside easily. Breaking the nut can be a reminder of the broken chains.
- Key lime pie
O Dayspring (Oriens)
December 21
Foods & Symbols
- Symbols: sunrise, sun
- Citrus fruits remind us of the sun
O King of Nations (Rex Gentium)
December 22
Foods & Symbols
- Symbols: crown, crown and scepter, cornerstone
- Crown- or wreath-shaped cake or cookies
O Emmanuel (Emmanuel)
December 23
Foods & Symbols
- Symbols: manger, chalice and host, crown with tablets
- Bread and wine
Christmas Eve
December 24
Prayers & Devotions
- Recite the Angelus
- Read Luke 2:15-20 aloud
Activities
- Caroling
- Polish “oplatek”: Breaking and passing this thin, wafery bread at the Christmas Eve meal reminds us of our daily bread and the Bread of Life who came into the world.
- Irish “Coinneal mor na Nollaig” (Great Christmas Candle): This is a large candle stuck in a loaf of bread and placed in the most prominent front window of the house to light the way for the Holy Family on their journey to Bethlehem.
Charity
- Put birdseed (or hang birdseed ornaments) outside for the animals or donate to an animal shelter (since St. Francis of Assisi insisted that all creation should celebrate Christ’s birth).
