Everyday Feast Days

Stories inside

Three example books from this collection. Every story is written fresh from your own prompt, so no two families end up with the same one.

• 

  Story 01

  A Saint's Day of Their Own

  Meeting the saint who shares their name, and finding out what they did.

  Most children have no idea that their name belonged to somebody first, and finding out is a genuinely good afternoon.

  The saint who shares your child's name arrives as a person rather than a statue: where they lived, what they were like, and the one thing they are remembered for.

  Your child meets them properly. The face in the illustrations is your child's, drawn from the photographs you upload, and the saint's feast day gets marked in the calendar.

  What it draws on

  Who the saint was, where they lived, what they did, and the day the church keeps for them.

  Your child's part

  Meeting their namesake, and learning what they have in common.

  Start their story

• 

  Story 02

  The Feast of St Nicholas

  Shoes by the door, a secret gift, and the bishop who started it all.

  Long before the red suit there was a bishop who gave things away at night and went to some trouble not to be caught doing it.

  That is the version worth keeping. Your child is awake when they should not be, peering round the edge of the door at the exact moment the parcel is set down among the shoes.

  It is a good way to give December a second, quieter celebration, and to put the giving back at the front of it.

  What it draws on

  Shoes set out by the door, a gift left in the dark, and who the bishop actually was.

  Your child's part

  Awake at the door, and the only one who sees him.

  Start their story

• 

  Story 03

  All Saints' Morning

  A church full of candles and the people who went before us.

  A church full of candles is one of the few religious images that needs no explaining at all. A child gets it on sight.

  These stories use that. Your child carries a candle up the aisle and places it among the others, and what they are really about is who the other candles are for.

  It touches on the people your family remembers, gently and without dwelling, which makes it a quietly useful book in a year when someone has died.

  What it draws on

  The candles, the procession, and the people the church remembers on this morning.

  Your child's part

  Carrying a candle and finding a place for it.

  Start their story