5 Tips for keeping the 12 Days of Christmas and Beyond In American culture, Christmas seems to be over December 26. The lights come down, people stop saying “Merry Christmas!”, and the trees find their way to the curb. The bleak midwinter of January hits but none of the Christmas cheer promised in songs of…
5 untraditional tidbits about the Advent wreath and why I still make one As a teenager, I remember a Lutheran friend sharing an Advent wreath she had made at church. This surprised me, as I had known it to be a longstanding Catholic tradition. “Good for them,” I thought. Only some years later did I…
The history and meaning of the Paradeisl, a traditional Catholic precursor to the Advent Wreath. Yet again we’re lighting the dark days of Advent by a Paradeisl. A what? A Paradeisl, from the German word for “paradise,” calling to mind the Fall of Man in the Garden of Eden and the need for redemption. The…