Our Third Week of Advent - 2015

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Baptism Anniversary

We love celebrating Baptism Anniversaries and Saint Feast Name Days for each of our children!  We think that it is so important for each of our children to know and appreciate these special days in their lives just as much as they do their own birthdays!  We light their baptism candle, say a special prayer, go to mass and they receive a little gift! 

 

Our son Connor loves Toy Story, and so I was thrilled when I saw that Kendra Tierney of Catholic All Year made this fantastic printable including Toy Story and the Guardian Angel prayer (which also happens to be one of his favorite prayers!)  She has also created a Café Press site where you can buy a lot of amazing items, but since this was copyrighted she could not put this particular image on items to buy.  I did learn though that I could simply buy the image and then put it on a pillow from Shutterfly, which made the most adorable and perfect gift for our little guy!

After breakfast we went to mass and had fun with our Friday classes with our homeschool co-op!  It was a great day!

Here's how we have celebrated other baptism anniversaries in the past:

Happy Baptism Anniversary Connor - 2014

Happy Baptism Anniversary Luke - 2014

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The Polar Express

Although we always like to keep the focus of Advent and Christmas on Jesus and St. Nicholas, we also love to enjoy classic Christmas movies.  One of our children's favorite Christmas movies is The Polar Express.  Our city puts on a special showing of the Polar Express at the movie theater with all of the proceeds going to a local charity.  We do not go out to the movie theater often so this is always a special treat each year! 

They also have a lot of extra things to make it special like conductors punching their tickets as they enter the theater and lots of characters dressed up as the characters in the movie, including Santa Clause!

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Christmas in the Forest

A beautiful Catholic Retreat Center in our hometown puts on a wonderful event called Christmas in the Forest each year during Advent.  It is a beautiful event to about the Christmas story including fun Christmas carols, a walk in the woods narrated with Biblical events, and a fun moment at a manger scene with live animals.  They kids are all able to dress up an participate and at the end they have a bonfire, cocoa and cookies.  It has become a really fun and meaningful tradition for our family to join in on each year!

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St. Lucia's Feast Day

St. Lucia's Feast Day on December 13th is one of our very favorite feast days of the entire liturgical year.  We have created such fun traditions and truly enjoy it as a family!  Each year we make some version of Lucia bread, read wonderful stories and end the day driving around together looking at Christmas lights!  Maybe one day we will even have someone to dress up as the Lucia bride!

This year, I remembered to ask my own mother ahead of time if she knew where she had packed away all of my sister's and my American girl dolls and books as I remembered that Kirsten's Christmas story was about St. Lucia!  My mom found them all and brought it over just in time for us to enjoy them and celebrate.  With all of our read-alouds with homeschooling and especially during Advent our boys have gotten so much better at sitting and listening to stories and we read the entire chapter book in one sitting together!  It was really special to bring something from my past childhood and introduce it to my own children.

 

Our little guy is getting so big and truly brightens our lives, especially on this feast day of lights!

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Advent Learning

There are so many great ideas of crafts and activities to do during Advent and one that I knew I wanted to try to do this year was make a canvas print of all of the children's hands making an Advent wreath together.  We have loved praying and reflecting around the Advent wreath each night at dinner as we light the candles and our children love waiting to see each new candle lit each Sunday at Mass!  Beyond that, they have been learning so many beautiful new songs at Catechesis of the Good Shepard each week including a song about what each candle stands for Hope, Peace, Joy, Love and finally the Christ candle!  They had so much fun making their very own Advent wreath art.

 

Late our oldest son was cutting out a candle from yellow paper and then kept walking around with his purple vestment over his head.  I finally asked him what he was doing and he simply replied "Being an Advent candle, Mom!"  "Oh...of course!"

 

Here is some fun Advent learning that we did last year!

 

Christmas Homeschooling

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Poinsettia and Train Show

A local garden puts on a poinsettia and train show every year from Thanksgiving through the New Year and it has always been one of our favorite things to visit.  Having a clan of boys who LOVE trains they absolutely adore this exhibit.  They could sit and watch the trains for hours!  I love how they have all of the beautiful plants and fun displays to look at as well. 

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O Antiphons

We started the tradition last year of reciting the O Antiphons during the last week leading up to Christmas.  Our children only participated in small ways, and we will continue to expand each year as their understanding and knowledge grows.  For me, it truly was a beautiful way for me to center myself with God as we neared our Savior's birth. 

Here is my post about the O Antiphons that I wrote last year explaining the tradition in more detail.

 

This week I will be linking up at Like Mother, Like Daughter and This Ain't The Lyceum!