The joy of a feast day is too great to contain within one day. That is why we often have entire liturgical seasons and octaves. For example, after Christmas Day we have the octave of Christmas–eight days of Christmas, followed by an entire season of Christmas until the Baptism of the Lord (Candlemas, February 2, for the old calendar).

We also like to prepare for feast days, and one good way to do this is to pray a novena. The solemnity of the Immaculate Conception is the day on which we celebrate Mary who was conceived without original sin.

Here is a good pdf with a way to celebrate the Novena.

If you go here you can sign up for some daily reflections and prayers in your inbox.

Let us give our Blessed Mother some special affection and make a resolution to honor her in a special way during these grace filled days. She is our mother and she looks forward to being with us. Let us entrust her with our worries, our joys, our struggles, our desires to be free from any habitual sin, a desire for clarity in vocational discernment. A desire to be more faithful to our vocation…

Here is a page with some more resources for growing in devotion to our Blessed Mother.