Religious and Acts of Kindness Advent Calendars

November 18, 2023 by Sarah White Leave a Comment

The advent calendar activity ideas I recently shared mostly focused on fun holiday-type things you can do together as a family like looking at lights and drinking hot chocolate, but if you want to bring about a deeper meaning in your advent calendar activities, check out these ideas, which are focused on the religious nature of the Christmas holiday or acts of kindness you can do this season.

At Home with Kids has a list of advent calendar activities and associated Bible verses to talk about with your kids while you do the activities. For example, putting a star on top of the tree is paired with “After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was.” (Matthew 2:9)

Not Consumed has a Bible reading advent calendar you can use to help teach children the Christmas story and prepare for the joyful day. Do the reading and share a little treat each day if you like.

The idea of a reverse advent calendar (see this post from Joyfully Thriving if you don’t know what I mean) has become really popular in recent years to get both kids and adults focused on generosity and acts of kindness through the season. If you’re looking for more ideas for acts of kindness you can do with your kids, check out these ideas from The Moms at Odds. Their list includes things like complimenting a stranger, taking a walk and cleaning up trash, or baking cookies to take to the local fire station.

If you want a printable calendar, check out this one from Coffee Cups and Crayons (as I write this it hasn’t been updated for 2023, but the number of days is the same even if the days of the week are wrong). It includes things like donating socks to the homeless shelter or making someone laugh.

Coffee and Carpool has another printable acts of kindness list where the items are numbered but days of the week aren’t listed. Some ideas from this one include painting kindness rocks and having siblings make gifts for each other.

If you’d rather buy an acts of kindness advent calendar you can grab this one, which includes little stories and missions for people to do, or these cute acts of kindness ornaments, which you can use as daily prompts in your advent calendar.

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Advent Calendar Ideas for Kids

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Book Review: Las Mañanitas

The celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe is important throughout Mexico and other parts of the world. Her feast day is Dec. 12, and the celebrations honoring her appearance to Juan Diego in 1531 begin a few days before that.

Whether you celebrate yourself or just want to share about the celebration at home or in your classroom, Las Mañanitas: The Beautiful Celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe is a good place to start. The book, by Ernesto Joel Vega Rosales and Jeanette Gonzalez Seneviratne, with illustrations by Dana Sanmar, tells the story of a family’s celebration of the feast day in both English and Spanish.

They prepare with a novena, which is nine days of prayers and preparations. The children, Lucia and Pablo, are given special outfits made by their grandmother that look like what Juan Diego might have worn when he saw Our Lady. The book describes the prayers that are made each day, such as a prayer for respect for life, for families and for the indigenous people of the Americas, to name a few.

As told in the book, Juan Diego was a native Mexican born near modern day Mexico City. His given name was Cuaauhtlatoatzin, which means “He who speaks like an eagle.” When he converted to Christianity his name was changed to Juan Diego, and as he walked to church he passed a hill called Tepeyac. One day he heard the birds singing especially beautifully and a voice called him to go to the top of the hill.

There he saw Our Lady of Guadalupe, who asked him to tell the bishop she wanted a chapel built in her name at the foot of the hill. The bishop asked for a sign that Juan Diego really saw her, and later she had him collect flowers that she blessed and take them to the bishop. When Juan Diego dropped the flowers, an image of Our Lady could be seen on his cloak, which is still on display in her basilica to this day.

The feast day is celebrated as mañanitas, which includes singing, indigenous music and dancing, and children presenting flowers to Our Lady. Juan Diego is remembered today as being humble, brave and faithful, and was the first indigenous American made a saint.

The book is colorful and tells the story in a clear way, and it’s fun to have it both in English and Spanish if you teach Spanish or speak Spanish at home or in the classroom. It’s a great way to learn the basics of the celebration and the story of Juan Diego and why he is still remembered today.

About the book: 40 pages, paperback, published 2024 by Loyola Press. Suggested retail price $14.99.

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