There are so many Catholic Advent Traditions that are so much fun for kids and adults. We tried many through the years, but the ones listed below are my tried and true that we do year after year depending on my energy levels that season. Some are more labor intensive than others, but most of them are simple and relatively inexpensive or are a one time investment.
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6 Common Catholic Advent Traditions
-Advent Calendars
Advent Calendars are so much fun and so versatile to suit everyone’s needs. If you’re going to buy some advent calendars there are so many options. We don’t buy ours. Typically we make ours. I have a few variations that we’ve done in the past.
1. Books to either unwrap and read each day of Advent.
You don’t need to wrap them, but it’s always fun to open something. We wrap the same Advent/Winter/Christmas books every year. I would not suggest just buying 25 new books one year (unless that’s in your budget). We collected these books over the course of 5ish years.
Here is a post of my favorite Advent kids books to add to your collection.
2. Prayer Chain
We make a construction paper chain for every day of Advent. On each slip we put an intention to pray for. We take one off and offer that intention up during our family prayers.
3. Building Blocks Nativity Calendar
I will admit that I haven’t actually used this Advent Calendar, but it is too good not to mention. I just saw that Amazon is selling an Advent Calendar with Lego-like building block characters for each day. I will definitely be buying this for this year.
-Advent Wreath
The Advent Wreath is a staple to a Catholic Advent. It is 100% necessary to be Catholic? Absolutely not, but it is one of the more common practices. Interestingly enough, it did not begin as a Catholic practice. It started out as a Lutheran in practice in 16th century Germany. Catholics in the 1920’s adopted this practice and it has began a staple ever since.
The Advent calendar typically consists of an evergreen wreath with 3 purple candles and one pink candle that represents the 4 Sundays of Advent. The four candles represent hope, peace, joy, and love. The pink candle represents, Gaudete Sunday, which is the 3rd Sunday of Advent. This Sunday is considered a “pause” in the penitential season of Advent. It is a day to rejoice, as evident by the introit of that Sunday that begins with “rejoice ye”. Some advent wreaths include a white candle in the middle as well that represents Christ himself and is lit on Christmas.
You don’t need to spend an arm and a leg on the Advent Wreath. You could make the evergreen wreath base yourself and buy taper stands and candles. It could be a really simple DIY if you didn’t want to buy one. I’ve seen some people use large pillar candles instead of taper candles. Our Advent Wreath is one that my dad gave to my husband and I when we got married. It was my parent’s first Advent Wreath. I love it.
My best advice is to make sure you actually have candles before Advent starts. I always forget! Here is a link to the candles I use in case you still need them.
-St. Andrew Novena
The St. Andrew Novena is one of my favorite Advent traditions. It starts on St. Andrew’s Feast day on November 30th. You say the novena prayer 15 times every day from November 30th to Christmas day. I have personally never had a St. Andrew Novena intention go unheard. My husband and I were both saying the Novena with the intention of meeting our future spouse when we met on December 16th 2012. It is a powerful novena and devotion to have. My best friend is not Catholic, but said the prayer every day of Advent when she had a very tumultuous pregnancy and her beautiful daughter is now 2yo.
I love making a few St. Andrew Novena chaplets on his feast day and giving them to family and friends for the season. Here is a tutorial on how to make one if you are interested. And here is a link to where I got the St. Andrew medals in bulk.
This is the prayer that you say for the St. Andrew Novena.
-Nativity Scene
Having a Nativity Scene that you bring out each Advent as a reminder of what Advent is about is such an easy way to bring Jesus into your home. We bring out two different Nativity scenes. The first one is our family version that I was given from my dad. We also use this one as a sort of Advent countdown as well because each day of Advent my kids are able to add another piece to the scene ending with baby Jesus on Christmas day. The kids love it.
The other Nativity Scene we bring out is one that my kids play with every day. It’s from Fisher Price and they love it. It’s a Little People set that my MIL gave my kids 5 or 6 years ago and has been a hit every year since.
-Straw for baby Jesus’ bed
We have only done this one year, but the kids really loved it and it taught them some great lessons in charity and sacrifice. I made a little box with no top that would fit a baby Jesus I had acquired. Then I cut up some pieces of tan yarn for the straw and every time my kids were kind or generous to their siblings or sacrificed something they wanted, they were able to take a piece of yarn and add it to baby Jesus’ bed. This way, on Christmas morning, when we brought baby Jesus out, He had a nice soft, warm bed to lie on.
-Jesse Tree
I love the Jesse Tree. We have done the Jesse Tree for the last 4 years. The Jesse Tree is a biblically based devotion that goes through many chapters, lessons, and prophecies of the Old Testament that foreshadowed the coming of Christ Jesus. It breaks them down into easy kid friendly pieces. Each day you read a chapter or a few chapters from the Bible, a short lesson on what it means to us, and questions to make sure you understood the meaning. Then each day has a corresponding ornament with a picture of something from the story. For example, the story of Noah’s ornament is the Ark with a rainbow.
There are many places you can get a Jesse Tree book and ornaments or learn about it. The book we use is this one. I have had some reviews that mentions that it isn’t Catholic, but I completed this book 4 times and I have never come across anything that concerns me. Leave a comment if you’ve read it and you disagree. This book does not come with ornaments, but it does come with a guide on symbols to put on the ornaments. I embroidered my own ornaments based on these symbols.
Catholic Sprouts has a great book that comes with ornaments and my sister uses this one from Amazon.
I will also mention that each book and resource I’ve looked at has used different stories and different symbols so keep that in mind if you want to mix and match.
Fun Feast Day Specific Catholic Advent Traditions
-St. Andrew’s Feast Day (November 30th)
Here is my post on what books we read, and activities/crafts we do on St. Andrew’s Feast day.
-St. Nicholas’ Feast Day (December 6th)
Here is my post on what we do on St. Nicholas’ Feast day.
-Immaculate Conception (December 8th)
We go to Mass because this is a Holy day of Obligation. We have a special treat, have a tea party, and read this book on the Immaculate Conception.
-St. Lucy’s Feast Day (December 13th)
This is one of my favorite feast days of Advent. My daughter dresses up as St. Lucy, we make cinnamon roll cupcakes and walk across the street (usually in the snow) and give some of the cupcakes to our elderly neighbors. We then eat the cupcakes ourselves while we read St. Lucy books and color a St. Lucy coloring sheet. We also go to our local Lights on the Lake drive-thru with hot chocolate. It is such a fun family day.
Here is my post on how we celebrate St. Lucy’s Feast day in greater detail.
Conclusion
Catholic Advent Traditions are so much fun to live liturgically as a family. I will admit that doing all of these traditions every Advent can become too much, especially the years that I’m pregnant and too tired to go the extra mile. I would suggest just trying one or two to start and see which ones fit your family dynamics and budget.
Let me know in the comments below which Catholic Advent Traditions your family does every year, especially if I didn’t mention it above.
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