My Boyo just started saying HoHoHo in time for St. Nicholas Day, what providence![This picture is my husband's wallpaper for today's feast that he made a few years ago between working on scripts. He has an entire year's set of liturgical wallpaper, actually, if anyone is interested. :)]
Today is his feast and what a wonderful one it is. In the Eastern Catholic Church, St. Nicholas Day is a much bigger liturgical celebration because he is the patron of little children, but in this little Latin Rite Catholic home, we try to do our part. :)
A great resource for today is St.NicholasCenter.org, with tons of great stuff, recipes, galore for today. In fact, my wonderful gingerbread that I've been making for 5 years (sigh, until this year due to finances. But, next year, my friends, next year! It shall return!) is from this site!
See here for an explanation of our St. Nicholas Day traditions.
As I said, St. Nicholas already made a little early visit last weekend with one of his gifts - an advent calendar and children’s advent wreath - so that Boyo could have it in time for the First Sunday of Advent.
But for the real feast, we began with the putting out of shoes last night:
These boots, Mama?
Who is coming to fill our shoes?
How 'bout like this?And then we went to bed!
Since our little lad was oblivious to what waited in the hall this morning:
What?Should I be noticing something?
We had breakfast and went to Mass. Really, isn't that the most appropriate? :)
After running to the store, we came home and first, we "lit" our second candle on the Advent wreath:
O Come, O Come, Emmauel...Then, we opened gifts! (And I put my jammies back on. You know, to be authentic! :-p)
Ooh, what could this be Mama?
Holy Cow, a CHOO CHOO for ME?!?And, some Christmas and Raccoon Jammies!
And a cute Christmas shirt that was less than $1 at Carters after Christmas last year! :)
Thanks St. Nicholas!
Nana also sent along some footballs (loud, unbearably, loud footballs), a cute little outfit and an angel for my own nativity.
Mr. 2nd Lt. was pleased with his headlamp and high speed outside gloves (yawn! But, that's what he asked for!), as well as his St. Patrick to add to our Living Room Sacred Space. Apparently, we have a short male saint thing going on ?
How did YOU celebrate today? :)
What a fun day! I clicked over from F&FL after reading your comments on gift-giving - any chance you'd pull it together and put it in a post here? I do a weekly link roundup, and I'd love to link to it...your spirit of the Christmas season is very inspiring!
ReplyDeletePS - we've been praying for another baby, too. My Goose is 2 1/2 already! I've been praying the St. Andrew Novena for myself and two friends - I know God's timing is by far better than anything I could come up with, but that doesn't make it any easier, you know how it is.
Blessings!
My apologies - I didn't mean to be cryptic! :>) I'm just finishing up this week's roundup (and needing to get to bed) so that'll give you all week to work something up and I'd love to include it next week. (please stop by and give me the link when you get it, if you don't mind)
ReplyDeleteWhat I was thinking was just an explanation of how you do your family's gifts, from St. Nicholas to Epiphany and in between. (And how you work it out when you're on a budget would be especially inspiring!) I was really struck by your ideas, and thought it was such a neat way to celebrate the season of Advent and Christmas.
Nope, I don't think St. Andrew would mind terribly if you started late. Since I'm saying it on behalf of two friends as well, I've actually been saying the prayer 45 times a day (though I think I may be short today - oops! I'll hit it hard in the car tomorrow on my way to town.) It's not nearly as hard as it sounds - I've been doing a lot of sewing lately (I'm making as many gifts this year as I can) and I find the prayer fits very well with the whir of the machine. :>) I think it kind of sanctifies my work, too.
Oh, my, I hear you on wanting to know NOW! Actually, I've been praying for God's will . . . if it's a baby, then great! If not, then I'm asking for peace. (And maybe a nudge for my hubs to consider adoption, but that's pretty far down the road, I think.)
I've always *thought* that I wanted a large family, even though I didn't get married until I was 27 and then we waited until I had maternity coverage on my health insurance. (Why I didn't think that God would provide, I'll never know. Sorry about that, God!)
Then, my daughter was one of those babies that cried a LOT, and I had the baby blues pretty bad for longer than one might think they should last. So, I know that God hasn't given me any more than I can handle. And even though I think I'm ready, He created my heart and knows it well. I sure have been drawn closer to Him by this, though! I'm pretty sure I had two babies conceived that didn't stick over the past few months, so I've been asking those little souls to intercede for me/us as well.
And now I'm realizing that this comment is getting way too long and I'm getting way too sleepy! I'm really looking forward to your post!!
PS - the other thing I meant by tying it together was to pull from your two comments at F&FL where you were explaining what you were doing. I don't think that was clear above! It just didn't seem quite right to send people over to the comments of that post . . . if that makes any sense. (I'm muddled on a regular basis, let alone this time of night.) You can also e-mail me at nettacow at gmail dot com and that way we don't have to be leaving comments back and forth. :>) (Not that I mind, just might be a bit confusing that way)
ReplyDeleteI should note that it's not like I have a bazillion people following my blog, so I don't mean to make it sound like it's a huge thing to be featured. (I think it's cool, but that's just me.) I do have about 75 total followers and subscribers, and I think the roundup is one of the things they love best.
OK. Off to bed for reals this time!
St. Nicholas Day was my favorite holiday ever since I was a kid. This year I got married and moved away and yesterday I totally forgot it was St. Nicks day. I got sad later in the evening when I figured it out because it was my first St. Nicholas Day without mentioning it and without (un)expected gifts in the boots.
ReplyDeleteOh so cute! I've never celebrated St. Nicholas day before, but I'd really like to, especially after seeing everyone's wonderful traditions this year! And I love your three gift idea!
ReplyDelete