Like many parents of young children, I prepare for Christmas in the weeks—or even months—before its arrival by keeping a list of my family’s wants and needs that can be wrapped and placed under the Christmas tree. The significant time and energy invested to meet the day’s material expectations often leaves little time or energy to spiritually prepare for the coming of Christ. Advent has become a season of anxious anticipation rather than joyful expectation. If you share in this annual battle to properly order your heart each December, Word on Fire Votive has published two children’s books that may help with both your material and spiritual Christmas preparations.

The Shepherd’s Coat is by beloved spiritual writer Caryll Houselander. Readers will walk, humbled and inspired, with twelve-year-old shepherd Benji as he seeks the Christ child, wanting nothing more than to give our Lord his first sheepskin coat. Houselander weaves this nativity story with the parable of the lost sheep, leading young Benji to discover a little boy, lost, cold, and afraid. Moved to pity, Benji gives his sheepskin coat—intended for Jesus—to this boy. For years after this act of generosity, Benji feels that in giving his first sheepskin coat to the boy, “he had given himself to the little lost boy” and could not, therefore, give himself to the “wonderful Boy of the angels’ song.” But as a grown man, Benji sees Jesus face-to-face and finally understands that his childhood prayer had been answered after all.

The Shepherd’s Coat will become a beloved story you and your children return to each December, reminded with every retelling that no act of charity is wasted. Benji heard from the mouth of Jesus that, “On the Day of Judgment, people would find out with astonishment that little kind things they had done and forgotten were really done to the Lord, who would never forget.”

With hearts full, we turn to The Catholic Kids’ Cookbook, a simple but powerful tool to feed the hungry stomachs and nourish the yearning souls in our household. It follows the liturgical season from the beginning of the Christian calendar in Advent to its ending with the feast of Christ the King.

Each recipe is accompanied by beautiful and homey photographs, sacred art, and a brief explanation linking the recipe to Catholic tradition, a saint’s story, or Scripture. My children were immediately drawn to “Guadalupe Hot Chocolate” and “St. George’s Dragon Eggs.” Faith and food are seamlessly integrated, teaching our little chefs that preparation of a meal can also prepare a hospitable heart.

The Shepherd’s Coat and The Catholic Kids’ Cookbook remind us that sometimes meeting the physical needs of those around us—whether in the form of a warm coat, a hearty meal, or a thoughtful gift under the tree—can also meet spiritual needs. These books will help you live liturgically and build up your domestic church this Christmas and, in the ones, to come. May you and your family see a return of joyful anticipation this Advent. ✣

This article appeared in the December 2025 edition of The Catholic Telegraph Magazine. For your complimentary subscription, click here.