There's been a couple great feast days back-to-back so far this Advent season, so thought I'd post some pics about how we celebrated in union with Holy Mother Church.
St. Nicholas Feast Day
This is always a fun day because it helps the children understand a little better about the person of St. Nicholas (aka Santa Claus in secular terms). We use St. Nicholas in our home, but when the kids hear Santa Claus, they know who people are referring to. In reality, the figure of Santa Claus really has nothing to do with St. Nicholas; they do not refer to the same person. They do, however, share similar characteristics, which is probably why people draw the correlation - for the sake of redirecting things back towards Christ (at least that's our reason). St. Nicholas is way cooler though. Here is an exerpt from the book Religious Customs published by TAN books explaining the saint and the historical origin of how Santa Claus came to be, if you're interested.
The traditional way of celebrating is that St. Nicholas comes by on the night of December 5 to deliver little candies or presents in the shoes/stockings/etc... for children to wake up to on the morning of his feast day, December 6.
I made these gold chocolate coins for the feast day, but don't let me fool you. I am rarely this crafty (even though I'd like to be moreso).
As expected, I messed up by not printing enough pictures out... Thankfully, the kids didn't even notice. Each set of gold coins had pictures of St. Nicholas on them and then one of their patron saint.
On Saturday, the kids had their friends over, so we made St. Nicholas hot cocoa and put it in jars to give out to people.
Hoarding the marshmallows
Ta-da! The tags were pre-made and shared by Jessica from her blog Shower of Roses.
We handed out the jars over the next couple days :)
On Sunday, the kids woke up to some wonderful little surprises :)
Ched inspecting the slippers...
They get excited over the simplest things :)
Waving that chocolate in the air...the look on that face...
Then we got ready for Mass and since we had some time, the kids asked to watch the DVD we have on St. Nicholas.
Helping Ronan get his sock on
Our parish has a great "breakfast with Santa" but what we love so much about it is that it's more authentic to our Catholic faith...hence it's called "St. Nicholas' feast day." It gets packed with young children and families, as you could imagine. First, our pastor read a book about St. Nicholas...
PDA...
Then arrived St. Nicholas, handing out gold chocolate coins with pictures of saints and the Nativity on them. :) Bill and I really enjoyed bringing our children to this for many reasons, but we really liked how the focus wasn't on "me" and "what I want for Christmas" but on how St. Nicholas is a great witness to the Gospel and the generosity of Christ. Our kids had a blast between between meeting "St. Nicholas," eating yummy food and raiding the dessert table, and playing with all their friends.
Isn't this gentleman a great St. Nicholas?? He even fooled me.
When we got home the kids were wiped out but we managed to read a story about St. Nicholas called The Legend of the Christmas Stocking.
Feast of the Immaculate Conception
Two days later...we celebrated the feast of the Immaculate Conception in honor of our Blessed Mother. (Yes, there's a lot of celebrating going on as Catholics!) When we celebrate the Immaculate Conception, we are not referring to Jesus being conceived, but to Mary's conception. We celebrate the truth that God, choosing Mary from the foundation of the world to be His Son's mother, had preserved her soul from the stain of sin by the anticipated merits of her Son Jesus Christ. Often, Catholics confuse this with the conception of our Lord, which it is not.
Good morning to another feast day celebration!
Making Our Lady's feast day cake
The best part...licking the batter
Yikes...I think I'll just stick to using traditional paper and pencil for my artwork...this turned out pretty bad. Way to go Jess.
Anxious for dinner (or maybe the wine?)...
Happy feasting!
Then, off to Mass we went after din-din for a beautiful choral Mass at our parish. It was a wonderful day!
Hope you are having a happy and holy Advent season - from our family to yours!