Celebrate Advent Saints' Days with Kids

Katie Fitzgerald shares her family’s favorite traditions for celebrating the saints' days that fall during Advent.

The very first liturgical celebrations we commemorated in our home were the saints' days that occur during the season of Advent. In the month of December, there are three saints we celebrate: St. Nicholas (December 6), Our Lady of Guadalupe (December 12), and St. Lucy (December 13). Here are my favorite ways to enjoy those days with preschool and elementary-aged kids.

One of our favorite ways to celebrate these saints is to sing. For each of these three feast days, we sing specific hymns. Our St. Nicholas hymn is called “O Who Loves Nicholas the Saintly” which can be found online at the St. Nicholas Center. The words are translated from Greek, but in English they are very brief and easy to learn by listening and repeating. For Our Lady of Guadalupe, we sing “Lady of the Roses,” which comes from the animated video on Formed.org, Juan Diego: Messenger of Guadalupe, which is part of the Saints and Heroes Collection. Finally, for St. Lucy Day, we sing Santa Lucia. The best recording I’ve found for learning that song comes from Catholic Icing’s YouTube channel:

I’m a former librarian, so reading is also always an important part of these celebrations for our family. Because we do incorporate Santa Claus into our Christmas celebration, my favorite book for St. Nicholas Day is a digital story available free on the St. Nicholas Center website, Now We Call Him Santa Claus. It traces the historical life of the real St. Nicholas and shows how he is connected to our present-day tradition of Santa delivering gifts. St. Nicholas Day is also the day we bring out all of our Christmas books to kick off our holiday reading.

Unfortunately, my favorite books about St. Lucy Day and Our Lady of Guadalupe are both out of print. Hanna’s Christmas by Melissa Peterson (now Melissa Wiley) is about a young Swedish girl who moves to the US and fears her parents won’t have time for their usual traditions amidst unpacking. The author has made a read-aloud of this hard-to-find book available on her YouTube channel, and it’s worth watching if you don’t have the book.

The Lady of Guadalupe by Tomie dePaola is a beautiful telling of the story of Juan Diego that so far has not come back into print. Used copies are a bit pricey, unfortunately, but it is truly a beautiful book, and I pray it will one day become widely available again. In the meantime, dePaola’s The Legend of the Poinsettia has a connection to Our Lady that makes it a good second-choice read-aloud.

There are also particular experiences that we provide for our young kids on these Advent saints' days. On the eve of St. Nicholas Day (December 6), we all put our shoes out to be filled by St. Nicholas while we sleep. When they wake up, the children usually find candy and/or a small toy inside their shoes and a book underneath each one.

For Our Lady of Guadalupe (December 12), in addition to watching the Formed video I mentioned earlier, we also like to listen to the Juan Diego episode of the Saint Stories for Kids podcast created by Shining Light Dolls.

On St. Lucy Day (December 13), we follow the Swedish tradition of having the oldest girl serve buns to the rest of her siblings. We usually just make Pillsbury cinnamon rolls, though occasionally we have tried other baked goods. Some years my oldest daughter wears a paper St. Lucy crown. We also try to make this the day we put the lights on the Christmas tree.

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Celebrating these special days helps ease the long wait for Christmas and provides a great opportunity for introducing liturgical living. #CatholicMom

Advent is a time of great anticipation for kids. Having these three special days to celebrate helps ease the long wait for Christmas and provides a great opportunity for introducing simple liturgical living into your family’s routine. St. Nicholas, Our Lady of Guadalupe, and St. Lucy, pray for us!

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