Liturgical Colors - Not Just for Church Anymore

I love wearing red on Pentecost.  But why stop there?  Some people wear pumpkin sweatshirts on Halloween.  Some wear jingly, festive, red and green outfits on Christmas.  Why not celebrate other Church feasts in our wardrobes?  All days may not be feast days, but all days have a color assigned to them on the liturgical calendar.

Mary days are easy - the color blue once or twice a week (she pretty much gets all the Saturdays).  I played with the idea of trying to wear liturgical colors every day.  This gets tricky during the summer unless one looks really good in, and has lots of wardrobe options in green.

I played with the idea of buying Christmas lights in all the liturgical colors and plugging in the proper one every evening for the day to come.  It is not impossible to find purple and pink but the one's I found had warnings about lead in them so it was not looking like a good project to do with the little ones in the family.

Above is a picture of something my parents made me for my birthday a while ago.  My dad is good at woodworking.  There is a dowel resting on the two hooks.  My mom used to make banners so she sewed some shiny cloth and bric-a-brac in different liturgical colors in double-sided squares, attached in pairs by three black bands that allow them to be draped over the dowel and easily changed every day.  I put the rosary on it just for size perspective.

I TREASURE this . . . um, unnamed thing, they made me.  My 8 year old's job is to check the Church calendar every morning and hang the correct liturgical color.  He thinks it is fun.  If it has been one color for awhile and changes we can talk about the new season or feast.  If it turns red we can look to see who died (what martyr we are celebrating that day).  It is also a conversation piece, and in that sense, an evangelization tool.  Hey, it also looks classier than most of my furniture (my parents do good work).

Someone should steal this idea and mass produce these.  You have my and my parents' permission!  America NEEDS these.  (OK, American needs a lot of things.)

Anyway, let me know if you can think of other ways to celebrate the liturgical colors of the day and season in your home or wardrobe, on Pentecost and beyond.