This DIY Candle Advent Calendar is one of our newest and likely our most treasured Advent practices as a family, and I’m excited to share how to make your own this year! We made it a handful of days before Advent last year, fairly impulsively, with things we already had around the house. With a week to go till Advent begins this year, we’re setting up and the children are so thrilled to see this simple candle calendar come back out! The development of the children’s visualization and imagination in the spiritual life is a high priority for my husband and I - celebrating the liturgical year as a family should be deepening the faith of each person each year, and for children that should include the development of the skills necessary for mental prayer and meditation. Any way that we can blend the tangible and external with the theological and intellectual for our children is well worth the effort! There is so much depth in meditating on the darkness of man in sin and hopelessness before the Nativity of Our Lord, contrasted with the Light, Salvation, and Hope that He brought in that unfathomable moment of His Birth. As I was looking to add to our Advent traditions, I wanted to help solidify the gradualness, waiting, and anticipation aspects of the season for the kids. We used to do a lot of Christmas celebrating during the Advent season, just not having been exposed to the beauty in completely separating Advent and Christmastide. The candle calendar came from that brainstorming; a way to show them tangibly the waiting and anticipation through the increasing in light as one additional candle is lit each day as Christmas Day approaches, versus a tiny stuffed Santa doll hoping from pocket to pocket, or the opening of tiny boxes filled with meaningless treats. We happened to have the traveling Saint Joseph and expectant Blessed Mother from Saint Nicholas Day gifts the year before, so they were added in to the calendar to give the children something to move, and as an alternative to pulling the crèche and Nativity scene toys out until Christmas Eve. This year with our Catholic Family Advent Crate, we received The Giving Manger - that will be a new Advent activity for us to add in this year, and the manger is placed at the end of the candle calendar. While it’s a VERY simple DIY project, I have had many questions on exactly what we did to make it, so I am happy to share the directions as simply as I can!
List of Supplies:
• 1 standard 2x4
• measuring tape
• drill + 1/4in drill bit
• wood pre-stain conditioner + wood stain
• polyurethane clear matte sealant
• 25 6in or 8in skinny 100% beeswax candles
DIY Instructions:
• Decide on the total length of the candle holder and the distance apart you want the candles to be, based on your space! Ours is 58 inches in length, with the 25 candles placed 2.25 inches apart.
• Have the cut made at the hardware store or cut at home!
• Sand edges and corners fairly well, especially if you have little ones touching the calendar and lighting the candles.
• Measure and mark your candle holes with a pencil, then using a 1/4in drill bit, drill at least an inch, straight down, for each of the 25 candles.
• Coat with a pre-stain wood conditioner, then following directions (ours says to stain within 2 hours), apply your wood stain according to the instructions of your particular brand.
• Seal with your preferred sealant; ours is a basic clear matte polyurethane.
• That’s it! It’s ready for candles and the visual countdown to Christmas for each day of Advent! Below I’ll share what we do as a family when we use our Candle Advent Calendar.
You can really use this in any way that suits your Advent needs and existing traditions! In our home, we light it once a day, usually in the mornings during our homeschooling time, or in the evenings right before dinner if we weren’t able to fit it in earlier. One of our objectives with our schooling is to learn new liturgical hymns, so last year we practiced singing O Come Divine Messiah (by singing along with the Benedictines of Mary at Ephesus, they have a wonderful Advent album!) as we lit the candles, and then a second time as we enjoyed them lit. Usually one child lights, another blows them out, and we rotate turns through the crew each day. I don’t have one yet, but a tiny candle snuffer would be so perfect for extinguishing the candles with out all the blowing, ha! This year we will sing O Come Divine Messiah and add in a second Advent hymn to learn and enjoy. We kept the candle holder in its place all of Advent, and then used it as a centerpiece (with all but the last candle lit) for our Christmas Eve Vigil dinner, which we do in the dark without artificial lights until after Midnight Mass. Then on Christmas morning, we light all of the candles, singing Christmas hymns instead! It’s then replaced by our Grandpa-made crèche and Osthiemer Nativity figurines that stay to be enjoyed and played with for Christmastide.
Wishing your family a very blessed Advent this year!