Friday, December 28, 2018

The Christmas Octave: A Peaceful Space

I was planning to make this first post in over two years a "catching up" post. And I will get to that, eventually. But I felt inspired to share some thoughts on this joyous time, the Christmas Octave. One of my favorite things about my Catholic faith is the way we celebrate the liturgical year, sometimes referred to as the Church year. After a beautiful and hectic, though somewhat prayerful Advent, the Church sets aside the eight days from Christmas to the feast of Mary, Mother of God (January 1) as a sacred space of sorts. The term octave refers to those eight days, and in the church, they are viewed as one long Christmas Day. Now, obviously, many people can't take eight days off from work to observe the Octave, but they can continue Christmas when they are at home.  I'm very blessed to be able to celebrate it, even in the midst of getting life back to normal, since we homeschool, and take our break until after New Year's Day. Now that the hustle of buying, wrapping, and, to some degree, baking is over, and the great day has arrived, we have more than just the one day to enjoy it. We keep our tree up until Epiphany on December 6, and I try to keep some decorations up through most of January, as the Christmas season doesn't truly end until the feast of the Presentation of the Lord on February 2.  We've turned our Jesse tree of Advent to a "12 Days of Christmas" tree, decorated each day with a different ornament from an ornament exchange we participated in years ago.

Since I didn't have time to post a Christmas tree "tour" before Christmas, here are some pictures of our tree and the ornaments that are most special to us:
We bought our tree at Costco this year. As much as I want to support small tree suppliers, we just couldn't afford to spend upwards of $75 for a tree, when they were around $40 at Costco.
 This little angel ornament is one we had in my family growing up. Mom let me pick an ornament from my childhood to use in my adult home, and this one made me remember so many happy Christmases.
 Jim and I went to Disney World on our honeymoon (Jim has always been a big Walt Disney-as-an-artist fan), and we bought this ornament there. I think one of the kids broke it years ago, so it's been glued back together at least once.
 This was  given to my oldest son, Nicholas, on St. Nicholas Day when he was just maybe two years old. Of course, as the oldest, he received ornaments, but none of his siblings have any that are just for them. Sorry, guys!
 I bought this little truck at Linton's Enchanted Gardens, a special garden center/gift shop/petting zoo that my mom and I like to visit a couple times a year
One year, I actually succeeded in getting my kids to hand-make ornaments during Advent. These are the traditional cinnamon and glue cut-out ones that smell really good. Or did when they were new, anyway.
 One of the ornaments either Paul or Patrick made in a co-op we attended one year.
 This is our very special tree-topper. We bought it about 30 years ago from Abbey Press. It's supposed to light up, but the lights no longer work. Anyway, I don't know if you can even find them anymore, but as a relatively new Catholic, I was thrilled to put Mary and Jesus on the top of our tree!
 These two are special Mother and Child ornaments I found at a Franciscan gift shop sale at a Franciscan festival we helped with a couple of years ago. I especially love the one with part of the Magnificat on it.

We have many more ornaments, really too many, in fact. It was hard to find space for all of them! These are some of my favorites, though.
So we spend these special days of the Christmas octave gazing at our lovely tree, eating cookies (and baking more, because we go through a lot of cookies with teenagers in the house, still listening to Christmas music, watching Christmas movies, and enjoying some down time with one another.

Thursday, June 2, 2016

Welcome June, and My New Summer Book of Days





So, so glad that June is here. May was wet and often chilly, so garden preparations were interminably put off. High pollen levels have also taken their toll, making it hard to spend a lot of time weeding and planting. Little by little, I'm getting there. Today was our last day of the school year. Hooray!!! I have so many plans for the gardens, making the deck a more pleasant place to sit and relax together, getting organized and preparing for our next school year. All three of my younger boys will be "in  high school" next year. Yikes! I have a lot to think about and get ready.                          
One of my strategies for both relaxing and enjoying the summer and prepping for next year is my new Summer Book of Days.  Created by Cay Gibson of Cajun Cottage Press, it is part journal, part planner. I love that there are so many components, but it's small enough to fit in my purse. There are pictures to color, places to ponder the summer days and summer plans, and most importantly, places to record summer memories. It also includes prompts to help keep track of drinking water, exercise, and prayer time. Now that the school year is over, I look forward to sitting outside with a cool drink, adding to my Book of Days. 

Friday, April 8, 2016

Easter 2016 and Confirmations





March was a super busy and eventful month. The first two weeks I was down with the horrible upper respiratory stuff going around (as were various family members), then we had Holy Week, the beautiful Easter Vigil (with Paul and his friend Joey serving at Mass). On Easter Monday evening, our three youngest were all confirmed at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. I'm so thankful to my friend Jenny, the boys' Uncle Greg, and their sister, Mary for being sponsors. 

Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Goodbye, 1980's wallpaper



This is what our family room walls have looked like since we moved here 10 years ago.  Don't get me started on the hunter green window shades. 

The boys have really gone to town removing the old wallpaper. It's almost all gone now, but that means Jim and I have to choose and agree on a paint color. We thought about painting the wood paneling, but I actually kind of like it, and don't want to bother painting it right now. Makes finding a good wall color a challenge though. After painting comes deciding on window treatments. Roman shades would be my choice.

Saturday, April 13, 2013

Fun Polka-Dot Cake

This looks like a fun cake to make sometime in the future. I'm putting it on the blog so I can pin to Pinterest, since the image came from Facebook.

Monday, April 1, 2013

Happy Easter!!

My schedule for this Easter Monday:

    Pray, then pray some more
    Dance around, whistling and/or singing
    Nibble ham
    Get dressed after 11:30 a.m.
    Putter around, slowly putting things away from yesterday
    Go outside and shiver, since the temp. has dropped about thirty degrees from yesterday
    Do laundry, maybe
    Nibble some more ham
    Read a book
    Eat some leftover lamb cake
    Take Patrick to buy a new kite, since the one he got yesterday is stuck in a tree
    Watch The Hobbit with the family


Saturday, March 16, 2013

Ever Ancient, Ever New

Since I'm recording this just for my own remembering, and for my family if they're interested, it doesn't matter that I'm several days late, again. Anyway, just when our family was really enjoying watching the Vatican Chimney for smoke (which I never did get to see live), this happened.


 Unfortunately, we were in a parking garage at the time, and with no smart phone, we could only listen to the crowds cheering and bells ringing through the car radio. After one more stop to pick up a kid, we raced home to find out who our new pope would be. The watching was a little anti-climactic, since it took such a long time for him to be announced. Like waiting for the birth of a baby.  But what joy when we found out his name: Pope Francis!



Having gotten to know and love St. Francis of Assisi through the Franciscan Brothers Minor, I could only think a Pope Francis is what the Church (and the world) need right now. And all the newness! The phrase "ever ancient, ever new" kept running through my mind when we found out that our new pope is the first Francis, the first South American, and the first Jesuit to become pope.
As exciting as these days have been, I'm looking forward to the days ahead, getting to know our new Holy Father.

The Christmas Octave: A Peaceful Space

I was planning to make this first post in over two years a "catching up" post. And I will get to that, eventually. But I felt insp...