Living the Seasons

Erica Tighe Campbell, owner and designer of Be A Heart, created this stunning, full-color guide to creatively celebrating the faith throughout the year. Living the Seasons is brimming with clever, doable, and beautiful crafts and activities; vivid photographs; brief introductions to the seasons and the lives of the saints; heartfelt notes of encouragement from Campbell; and original Be A Heart illustrations. This gorgeous companion will become your favorite resource for living your faith at home for years to come.

In Living the Seasons, Campbell offers imaginative ideas, effortless directions, and gorgeous photos of crafts, activities, meals, and snacks for a diverse variety of Catholic feast days, holy days, and seasons in the Church. She uses supplies that can easily be found at your local craft stores, party shops, or online retailers.

You’ll find ways to celebrate all of the Church seasons—Advent, Christmas, Lent, the Triduum, Easter, Ordinary Time—and Holy Days of Obligation in the United States, and feast days for saints from Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and the Americas. And you’ll discover fun ideas and new traditions such as:

• throwing a baby shower for Mary;
• blessing your home in the New Year;
• celebrating Fat Tuesday with King Cake and a piñata;
• living like St. Joseph by spending time in silence and making a wooden baby rattle;
• constructing your own gratitude journal and rosary;
• making art for God, including a salt-dough Trinity wall hanging, an Assumption cloud pillow, and an orange garland for St. Nicholas Day;
• creating edible flower lollipops to remind us of the “Garden of Mary’s womb”; and
• baking “Cookies of Joy” in honor of St. Hildegard of Bingen.

Campbell will help you discover that the liturgical calendar, which follows the seasons of a year in the life of the Church, is a tool that can draw you—individually, as a family, or as a community—closer to God in the midst of a fast-paced and ever-changing world. Along the way, the saints we celebrate teach us that the path to holiness is worthy of pursuing in our own unique way. Their lives can inspire you to listen to how God calls you to follow him as well.

This book is designed to inspire you to celebrate the feast days that speak to you personally. You don’t have to start living liturgically on the first Sunday of Advent—you can begin your journey anytime during the year. You also don’t have to celebrate every feast on a grand scale.

There are projects for all ages and levels of skill—from simple ways to honor a saint’s feast day with your kids to more elaborate celebrations with family and friends.