Custodians of Beauty

During the first week of Advent, our parish offers wall calendars (great for remembering saint feast days!) and the Magnificat Advent Companion to all the parishioners. We've been reading from the Magnificat Advent Companion as a family. We read the prayer and reflection of the day every night after dinner. Then the girls get to open their advent calendars. One of the calendars displays the nativity scene and has a bible verse and picture behind each door. The other calendar has small chocolates treats behind each door. (We open the bible verse calendar first.) The girls take turns opening the doors and sharing the chocolate. So far there have only been a few times when the treat didn't make it to the second mouth. We are getting better though. Our advent wreath sits on the home altar. We were able to use last years purple and pink candles, since they still had some life left in them. One of the Advent calendars we are opening this year.  Last night we left our shoe...

St. Nicholas, bishop of Myra We celebrated the feast of St. Nicholas this year by placing our shoes by the door for St. Nick to fill. Growing up, my family hung stockings on the stairway, but now as a mom myself, I prefer the idea of shoes. And here's why: 1. It's adorable to see them lined up from small to big, 2. You only need a few treats and small gifts to fill them (stockings can be WAY too roomy and take forever to fill), 3. I feel that it's more "old world" and truer to the St. Nicholas story.     This year the shoes were stuffed with clementines , chocolate santas, applesauce pouches, and assorted nuts. I was hoping to find chocolate coins, but the store only had  hanukkah themed ones . "Jolly old St. Nicholas, lend your ear this way..." After Sunday Mass and naps, we took the girls to a local tree farm. It was overcast that afternoon which gave the tree fields a lovely haze. This was a first for our family, we'd never cu...