Announcing the Christmas Issue of Wayfare

Get a look inside our brand-new print issue, and be sure to become a paid subscriber by October 30 to get yours in the mail!

Wayfare is pleased to announce our Fall 2026 issue—Celebrate Advent: A Christmas Companion. Building on our longstanding tradition of sharing essays, poetry, artwork and more exploring the traditional Advent themes of hope, peace, joy, and love, this special issue invites you to slow down and experience a more meaningful holiday season by embracing this ancient liturgical tradition, whatever that looks like for you in this season of life. Paid subscribers will receive a copy of this issue in the mail—and we are offering a 20% Advent discount from now until October 30th. Subscribe today!

Advent is the Christian liturgical season that begins on the fourth Sunday before Christmas (in 2026, that is November 29.) During each week leading up to Christmas, you’ll be able to open up your issue and explore a traditional Advent theme—hope, peace, joy, and love—through essays, poetry, an original children’s story, artwork, scripture, and more. This issue also includes essays, poems, and other offerings to deepen and extend your Christmastide observance. And as always, this issue is stunningly designed, with beautiful full-color art throughout. Explore the full table of contents here!

If you are already a paid subscriber, your Advent issue is on the way! Purchase additional copies for friends and family members at our new storefront:

This issue will be a meaningful addition to anyone’s holiday season. You can purchase extra copies to give away here—and get a discount when you purchase more than 5 at a time!

Paid subscribers will get instant digital access to all of our Advent issue content, so you won’t have to wait for your issue to arrive to start reading—but we do recommend you become a subscriber by October 30 in order to receive your print copy in the mail by the first Sunday of Advent!

…Each Sunday during Advent, in the darkest part of the year, people gather to light Advent candles. Each week a new candle is thoughtfully added, until by Christmas Eve the wreath is a circle of light, pushing back against the darkness and insisting that yes, darkness is real—but so is light. 

Advent teaches me that I don’t celebrate the birth of a Savior by closing myself off to difficult realities and uncomfortable emotions; I celebrate by allowing myself to feel it all and letting that depth of feeling inspire me to bring just a little more hope, peace, joy, and love into the world. It invites me to join in the work of “hasten[ing] the time” of peace on earth, goodwill to men. It reminds me that this is precisely the world to which “the dear Christ enters in”—and that, miraculously, I can be a part of that entering.

The Light of the World by Emilie Buck Lewis

Through music, essays, poetry, artwork, stories and more, we hope you will be inspired to join with us, in your own way, to bring more hope, peace, joy and love to the world this season, each of us lighting our own small candles against the darkness.

—from the editor’s introduction to the Advent issue