Discovering the Saints

The Advent wreath forms the foundational layer of symbolism that is used to set apart the season of Advent from the rest of the year. Though traditionally it is a round wreath (which has its own symbolism) with four or five candles there is no one way to set up your advent “wreath”. All that is needed is four candles, one for each week, and an optional fifth candle for Christmas day. Whether it is a grouping if individual candlesticks, a special advent candelabra, or a homemade wreath of greenery – each Advent “wreath” is as unique and personal as the family that uses it.

Originally Advent was a 40-day season of fasting that started after the feast of St. Martin on November 11 and culminated with the baptism of new converts. Fasting remains a feature of Orthodox Advent but in the Catholic and Protestant traditions the emphasis shifted to a time of increased prayer, reflection, and acts of charity.

Suggested Spiritual Practices for Advent

• Commit to increasing the time spent in Prayer. There are many ways to do this, some suggestions would be to add an additional period of prayer to the usual morning and evening prayers, choosing a single word to embody the heart of your prayer and uttering it throughout the day as constant prayer, using a devotional to guide prayers for different topics than you would normally think to do.
• Ask the Spirit to help you choose a book to read in the evenings instead of watching TV. Before sitting down to read ask Heavenly Father to open the eyes and ears of your heart to see what he wants you about his heart for the world.
• Decorate and celebrate slowly, Christmas is a season, not just a day. Do stockings on St. Nicholas day, put out decorations after General Conference, put up lights on St. Lucy’s day, wait to decorate the tree and put out the creche until a week before Christmas, keep the decorations up and continue to celebrate until Epiphany.
• Do acts of kindness. Prioritize participating in Light the World with the church this year.
• Listen to previous year’s Christmas Devotionals.
• Use an Advent or Christmas themed devotional and journal what you are learning each day.

Making Each Day Special – Additional Activities for Advent

When we slow down and take the time to focus on the activities that we don’t typically make the extra effort to do during the rest of the year, we are setting that time apart as something different and special. This is part of what it means to sanctify something; we treat it differently than we do other things in our life. Special traditions help to sanctify our Advent season and following are some of my favorites.