Our Video Christmas Greeting to YOU!!

May God love you and 

bless you this Christmas season!  

And may you be His presence 

to those around you!

Christmas Ponderings

I'm sitting here less than two hours before the clock strikes midnight on Christmas Eve, sipping some apple cider.  No empty stockings hung here.  No Santa gifts to wake up in the morning.  You see - St. Nicholas already made a visit to our place a couple weeks ago on his feast day.  I'm glad he's just always paid his visit to our family early, so we can focus on Jesus and not have the crazy hustling and bustling that entails when it happens on Christmas morning.  To each his own, but I'm sure thankful for the peace our traditions allow for on the day we celebrate Jesus' birth.

Waking up to a winter wonderland brought so much joy to all of us.  This was actually our first snow of the season.  The littles all went out right away to play.  Big boys had to be shoved out and only because they had a reason to go out... 

(one of the many blessings of having lots of kiddos - so many hands to help!!)

Our poor kitties didn't like the first snow.  They kept darting in anytime the door was opened.  Goofy things!  Your home is outdoors!

We were able to celebrate Mass tonight in celebration of the Word becoming Flesh.  It was such a beautiful Mass and always so touching to remember why we celebrate Christmas.  Our Lord loves us so much to come as an infant.  A cute sweet adorable cooing baby.  We all love babies.  So it's easy to have joy when we think of Our Lord as a wee one.  But at the same time, we know the whole story.  We know *why* he came.  We receive the Body of Christ to feed and nourish us and love us and help us get to our Heavenly Home.  From the cradle to the grave.  He reigns and hopes and waits for us now.  May we all be blessed and gifted to spend all eternity with Him. 

At Mass tonight, we only had 3 young ones with us!!  It was so strange.  But a blessing indeed to share my children as they serve Our Lord and His Church.

Three served up on the altar...

Three beauties gave the gift of their voice...

We shall celebrate on.  For Christmas begins on Christmas Day and continues 12 days til Epiphany!  So, keep up your tree and decorations.  Keep singing those Christmas carols.  Keep the Christmas spirit alive and spread Jesus' love and presence to those around you. 

++Thank you, Jesus, for coming to live with us and guide us and love us.  Help us to return that love to back to you and to those in our lives.++

Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas!!!!

{{Keeping Christ In Christmas}} - 7 Ideas For Families

Christmas will be here soon!!

Twelve more days!!!!

December 25th marks the *beginning* of Christmas, not the *final* day!!!

Although most of the world around us is celebrating Christmas now,  as Catholics, we are called to hold off and wait until Christmas Day and use this season of Advent to prepare ourselves.  Then come Christmas Day, we can rejoice in the Newborn Babe and celebrate His birth and presence in a number of ways.  Here are 7 tips on Keeping Christ in Christmas....


#1 - Keep your decorations up!   Don't take them down and pitch the tree in the ditch on December 26th.  Let the tree and all your decorations stay up for at least the 12 Days of Christmas to get you to Epiphany.  The Christ-child is the Light of the World, so keep celebrating his birthday by keeping your home decorated until Epiphany.   Feel free to leave all this up til Candlemas (Feb 2nd) even!   But at least follow the Church's example by celebrating with decorations until the feast of Epiphany.

#2 - Speaking of the 12 Days of Christmas, celebrate them!   They begin ON Christmas, not END on Christmas.  Again the 12 Days carry you all the way to Epiphany.   We have a few books on the Twelve Days of Christmas, that we read a page a day (only on that day of Christmas).  We talk about the symbolization about what each day means in our faith.  Every day, the kids open a simple gift that represents that day.  And, of course, we sing the song about the twelve days of Christmas, motions and all!  When you finally reach Epiphany,  go all out with an Epiphany play - with the 3 wise men and their gifts, Mary, Joseph, a baby Jesus!  Click HERE to see posts on how we celebrate these special days.  (there's also a gift idea for a Twelve Days of Christmas gift basket, if you are still looking for that "perfect" gift - it's obviously religious themed and one that keeps on giving!)

#3 - Keep listening to Christmas music and watching Christmas movies!!!   

"The best way to spread Christmas cheer is 

singing loud so all can hear" 

~Buddy the Elf (from Elf)

Our local radios stop playing Christmas music at the New Year, so dig out all your Christmas CDs or get your playlists ready to keep the Christmas Carols playing.  Make a joyful noise!!

Fa la la la la, la la la la!!!  

Likewise, keep the joy of Christmas going by watching your favorite movies together as a family.  Pop the popcorn, turn down the lights, push play to start your favorite Christmas movie, and enjoy some fun family movie nights remembering the JOY sent down on Christmas Day to be a gift to every one of us.


#4 - Add baby Jesus to your nativities on Christmas day.  If He's already in your nativities at home, go pull him and hide him until Christmas Day.  Wrap Him up and put the wrapped baby Jesus under your tree. And then on Christmas Day, read the story of Christ's birth and have the kids open The Best Gift Of All - Christ born into the world!!   We always have a procession singing one of our favorite Christmas songs as we as we walk about the house and stop at the nativities to place Baby Jesus into His crib.  We actually have multiple nativities/cribs set up in our house, so this takes a bit of time.  But it's so special because multiple kids each get a chance to open the Baby Jesus gift and carry Him to His crib.  Such a special way to begin our Christmas morning and help us remember why we even celebrate Christmas.

#5 - If you haven't sent out Christmas cards, DO!!!   It's still Christmas until Jan 5th, and if you want you can even give yourself to Feb 2 (Candlemas) to get them out.    Everyone loves to get mail and what a beautiful statement you'll be making to others by continuing on the celebration of Christmas.

#6 - Focus on the people you love, not the present.  One of the best gifts you can give another is the "gift of time".  So if you are needing to take part in gift-giving/exchanges, consider giving the "gift of time" - either from the time/love/hard work put into a homemade gift (here's our favorite homemade gift to give) -OR- give a homemade "gift certificate" for a gift of taking a loved one out to dinner/movie or a concert/movie or adoration/coffee date or a daily Mass/breakfast date.   The ideas are endless!!   And just think of the love of Christ in you that you'll be sharing and then the opportunity you'll get to spend time with your family/friend to find Christ in them when you actually spend that special time with them.

#7 - Celebrate with a cake and a song.  Everyone knows that you can't celebrate a birthday without a birthday cake and singing "happy birthday".  Same with Christmas Day!   Bake (or buy) a cake, write "Happy birthday, Jesus" and sing "Happy birthday" to him.  Easy peasy and another reminder why we celebrate Christmas.  We celebrate Him!   The birth of the Newborn King!   Happy birthday, Jesus!    (Our Pookey's birthday is 4 days before Christmas, so we always write his name on the cake too.  He LOVES being birthday month buddies with Jesus!)

May the blessing of the Newborn Christ 

live in and shine so beautifully 

through you this Christmas season!!    

**************************************

This is the second month of a new blog hop, 

Siena Sisters Blog Hop!  

Click on the image below to see what other Catholic Women are 

sharing on this month's theme {{Putting Christ In Christmas}}....

Celebrating the Twelve Days of Christmas

We sure had fun carrying on the tradition of celebrating the Twelve Days of Christmas this year!  What fun it is to live liturgically!!  :)

Here's a peek at our Twelve Days...

First day

Second day

Third day

Fourth Day

Fifth Day

Sixth Day

Seventh Day

Eighth Day

Ninth Day

Tenth Day

Eleventh Day

Twelfth Day

We'll most likely keep celebrating by listening to Christmas music and keeping up our decorations (including our tree) until February 2nd, which is Candlemas.

++Thank you, Lord, for the joy and fun and memories made by living liturgically!++

2015 Christmas Video Card

We wanted to try something new this year and put our Funny Boys' video-making skills to use and create a Christmas Video Card.  The boys (Mario especially) worked hard on all of this, with only a few suggestions/ideas from Mom and Dad.

Enjoy....

May God bless you abundantly this Christmas season and over the New Year too!!  

Merry Christmas - 2014

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!!!

Jesus is born!!

REJOICE!!

Twelve Days of Christmas basket and ideas

Yesterday was Christmas Day and the first day of Christmas!  So, chronologically, that makes today the second day of Christmas!!  Keep on celebrating!

For the past several years, we have celebrated each of the twelve days by singing the song, doing the motions (you cannot forget to do those!!), and reading what each day symbolizes in our faith.  We had a grand celebration and dinner at the end of the twelve days, with food items to go with each day's theme.  It was always so much fun to see what they remembered at the end of the Twelve Days, not only the fun gift but also the spiritual gift symbolized.

When we drew names for my family's Christmas to swap gifts, I asked my sister if they would like a Twelve Days of Christmas themed basket.  When she said "yes", I was so excited to share this beautiful tradition of ours and to put it together.  As I was buying gifts for their basket, I thought some of the items would be great for our own family.  So when my sister-in-law asked for ideas our family, I told her a Twelve Days basket would be great for us too.  It's so nice when it works out so beautifully that way - many of the same gifts we bought and gave away, we received for our own family!   :)

Here is a look at what we put in the Twelve Days of Christmas themed basket and how we packaged it...

Items for each of the twelve days 

(we wrapped each of these in brown paper and labeled them with their day number and the date it could be opened)

(a partridge in a PEAR tree) 

 (two turtle DOVES)

 (chicken noodle soup for the three French HENS)

 (bugles look like megaphones to represent the CALLING birds and four evangelists proclaiming the Good News)

 (five RING pops --- yeah, these are skeleton ring pops....   we forgot to get these out and give them away at Halloween time, but remembered them for when we needed RING pops at Christmas time- lol!)

(silly putty EGGS for the six geese-a-laying)

(a fun game with a SWIMMING Nemo on it to help us remember the seven swans-a-SWIMMING)

(goat's MILK soap and MILK MAIDS caramels)

(a pirourette is a ballet DANCE move) 

(These chips look like little crowns and the LORDS-a-leaping are kings and all kings wear crowns.  We put a note on this item to save and eat it with day 11's item.)

(salsa is a PIPING hot dip) 

(bongos = DRUMS)

Ornaments

Jesse Tree Treasures on Etsy created and sells a beautiful set of ornaments to hang on your tree on each of the days.  

Books

You have to include some beautiful picture books, right?  

Puzzle

Here is a beautiful puzzle and you have twelve days to complete it as a family!

Lapbook

We made this lapbook many years ago and it has been THE staple to help us remember the symbolization of each day, so we made up another one for the gift basket.  

Throw it all in a laundry basket (I am way too practical - who can have enough laundry baskets??) and top it off with a soft velvety blanket (you can never have too many blankets!), and VIOLA, there you have a fun and faith-filled Twelve Days of Christmas basket!!

Want a printable for the kids to color and keep track of each day as you celebrate it??  Seton Magazine shared one this morning - how convenient!!  Isn't it beautiful!  

Have a blessed Twelve Days of Christmas and keep on celebrating!!