How are you using the Advent wreath in the Christmas Season? Are you still using it? Are you still lighting all the candles? Have you replaced the purple (and rose) candles for white ones? When do you stop using it?
Here are a few of the responses I have previously received:
- We replace our Advent candles for maroon colored candles (I know, not liturgical white) and we keep the “bowl of prayers” in the center (that we started filling with prayers during Advent) to remember through the Christmas Season.
- Advent Candles lit until Candlemass.
- The purple and rose candles (and ribbon) are replaced by white candles, but we never used the Advent wreath devotionally after Christmas Eve.
- The wreath is gone by the end of 12th night, along with almost every other remnant of Christmas decor. Until then all candles have been lit at services.
- White candles on Christmas then it goes back into storage until next advent. But I don’t take any items down till the Baptism- and I keep one small item up until Feb 2nd the true end of the season.
- The Advent wreath until Vespers on December 24th.
- purple and rose for Advent and then switch to all white candles until epiphany.
- The Advent Wreath is replaced by the crib.
- After Christmas Vigil, I left my candles–all four plus the Christ candle in the centre–burn out entirely on their own (similar, I suppose, to the Jewish practice of letting the menorah candles burn out naturally.)
- On Christmas Eve, the 4 Advent candles were replaced with 4 white candles.
- …the star will stay until Candlemas
- We’re ‘taking each light into the world’… in a brief litany, we’re carrying out one candle ‘into the world’ each week of Epiphany.
You can add your ideas or practice in the comments section.
