Thursday, December 10, 2015

Advent Week #2

I'm linking up with Beth Anne again this week to talk about Advent. I love these writing prompts because then I don't have to think of anything myself. ;-)

I'm going to talk about our St. Nicholas traditions, or more accurately, what I hope to make our traditions into. This year was really the first year that anything made a connection for Dominic I think. We put their shoes out the night before, and checked them first thing in the morning. I know we did this last year as well, but I don't think anything made a connection. We tried to talk about Saint Nicholas, but he had a hard time differentiating between him and Santa Claus. He kept saying it's "Sainta claus's birthday!" Part of this is because I haven't been able to add saints into much of our religious education; I'd say that this is likely because I struggle to think of specific saints' feast days. I have tried to do something on the boys' name saints' feast days, but I find it hard to think of. Perhaps this is because I'm a convert, and while I totally understand and appreciate the celebration of saints' feast days, it's still a little foreign to me and is definitely not a big part of my faith. I also find it difficult, because most of what you see to do with kids is coloring pictures or something and our boys are not into coloring. I keep thinking that eventually I'll find the best way to introduce saints to the boys. Perhaps that is what Saint Nicholas' feast day can be for us. A small introduction.

This year I did chocolate coins for Dominic and daddy and a few Oreos for Christopher, along with a slinky for each boy. Nothing big, but something that will stand out as exciting. Well, I thought it would, but apparently it has been so long since Christopher had Oreos that he wasn't excited by them anymore. He did finally eat one part of a cookie a couple days later. That's a win! ;-)

2 comments:

  1. I have a google calendar I'm subscribed to that tells you what feast day it is each day which is cool.

    I think your kids are still a little young to totally understand. And really just because kids color a saint sheet doesn't mean they understand.

    I think when they get older a good way would be to get a book of daily saints and during a night/family prayer time you could read about the saint of the day. Some religious education books do have a saint that goes with each lesson so that is something else you can look into.

    A good way to teach about St. Nick as he gets older is to do a "christmas around the world" thing and tell him how santa claus is called different things in each country. In the Santa Clause movie there is a good clip that does that.

    So yes Santa Claus and St. Nick are sorta the same person but not really LOL

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    1. Oh yeah the book about daily saints is a good idea!

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