Christmas Day 2015

We started our Christmas eve with H. Mass and stayed with our friends. Coming home children started digging their gifts and were excited to see many things.

So nice to see children opening their secret Santa gifts.

We had  roast turkey made by both Joby's  and enjoyed the meal together

Once reached home, kidoos started opening their gifts. Annu got guitar, bag and pompom stitch. 

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T






Munnu's favorite toy was metal machines so that he could assemble and make .

                                 Theresu got her favourite peppa pig puzzle and tea set

 This is the flower Annu decorated with her friend for he Christmas altar.

 Children got many gifts for this Christmas from family and friends and their new Christmas dress too.

''O''Antiphon week.

It was the 4th week of Advent where we were entered into Antiphons. This seems to be an interesting week to pray with the kids. Have you heard of O Antiphon days?. They are the seven antiphons which we start learning from Dec 17  and sing  O Come Emmanuel.....which cover the priod of advent, octave before Christmas. This found to be good tradition to teach children about these prayers and increase the excitement towards Christmas. Avemomma got a nice sheet on O Antiphons

We noticed it was a great tradition in Benedictine monastries and arranged it in a special order. Seven titles are Emmanuel, Rex, Oriens, Clavis, Radis, Adonai and Sapientia; the latin word ERO CRAS is formed which means 'Tomorrow I will come' . We begin the titles from the last which is Sapentia which means Wisdom and so on. Many families do this as a tradition to make ' O Antiphon House' and wrap some gift for children everyday in golden paper to remind the golden nights which I would love to do it at least for next year.


There was a drama played with other Home edders on Henry 5th and a Carol concert in St Joseph hall. It was an amazing time and every children did their best performance and well done to Allison. who coordinated things and playscript.

                  Small version of the O Antiphon house made out of cardstock.

There was a day when children did some cake decoration with our friend.

Advent

In fact advent has come and  nearly finishing the first part of advent today. Tomorrow starts with O Antiphons. We lit the first candle of advent and  Annu made an advent wreath with some pines, hollies and cones which were collected over autumn.We tried to light  candles in the evening as much we could.

Since advent is a time of preparation not celebration. It was kept to prepare ourselves by tidying their rooms, doing some good works and preparing cards.

 I heard many families only start decorating Christmas tree a few days before Christmas  only.

Some preparations during advent is to stop watching television and to encourage to do some good things and put  an yellow straw for every good deed children do without prompting so that they can prepare a soft manger for Baby Jesus, however they don't get anything like jelly beans during lent. But just been acknowledged and to encourage doing virtues in the first time.

Many feasts fall on advent, it is a tradition to fill shoes on feast of St Nicholas on Dec 6, white decorations on immaculate conception, braids and Mexican food on Our lady of Guadulupe, can put Christmas lights  and drive around many houses to see lights on St Lucy's day on 13 th and  do some Christmas baking towards the Christmas week.


                                         Christmas Books 

Since many catholic families got a practice of reading books for their children over the advent till epiphany and a little effort was made on it .

I thought of doing advent calendar and doing some nativity jigzaw with children, unfortunately I couldn't do many things. Many families have a tradition of playing nativity on Christmas day and make some christmas treats during Christmas week (deserts; popcorns, sugar cookies, cakes,florentines).


 Jesse tree was the another tradition which were followed since we started our home schooling. This is the custom of decorating  hristmas tree with the events leading to the birth of Jesus . This is named from the Isiah 11;1 which says "A shoot will rise up from Jesse...".Jesse tree is decorated with various  ornaments  telling the story of God from the Old Testament and continues with Abraham, Moses, covenants. and expecting the coming of the promised saviour......It will be decorating from tomorrow  and lot of information on Jesse tree is in Loyola press.

Our Lady of Guadalupe and feast of St Lucy

We celebrated the feast of Our Lady Of Guadalupe on 12th of December. Story of our lady was read and Annu did some fabric paint on a piece of cloth which was so good.Thersu did some coloring page of Our Lady and some of the symbols in  Our Lady's  picture  is explained in paperdali which is found to be great to understand the Aztecs.

 Children made some Mexican cookies which was very yummy.

On the feast of St Lucy, we listened to the pod cast on St Lucy and why she became patron of swede and went out to see the lights.

Fiddlers ferry power station visit

Children had a visit to the Fiddlers ferry  power station with other homedders. Fiddlers Ferry power station is a coal fired power station located in the north of River Mersey in North West England It was very informative and exciting one, since them munnu is doing is lot of experiments.Little kids did have a fun craft area where they did lot of activities  in relation to energy used in Victorian times.

There is an exhibition room where children  have many resources ,where they do lots for primary and secondary schools on topics of electricity, energy and sustainability. Windmill was made and showed them about different sources of energy and made their own different type of circuits (parallel & series).

Celebrating the feast Of St Nicholas

One of the great saint during the advent time is St Nicholas. It was a great day for children to think about this great saint who helped many people, wonder worker, on the day of baptism he jumped out and stood straight thrice reminding Holy Trinity(life of St Nicholas podcast). Instead of traditional way of packing with shoes, we made a treat bag for each child in our family filled with candy, Gold coins and some  books and CD.Many interesting stuffs are found in St Nicholas center. Children did some puzzles and tried to make some ginger bread cookies. We listened to the story of St Nicholas.

So what are things inside the  bag

Chocoloate gold coins to show the the gold coins given to the three girls.

Candy canes to represent the crozier/staff which bishop carries.

Orange also remind the gold coins.

Books & movies regarding St Nicholas

Month of November in our family

I have not been able to blog for long time since I came to know the arrival of the new member into our family. We had All Saints Party with other homeschoolers in St Joseph .Everyone had a good time and Mundackal family was coordinating the program. There was  a guessing up time, bringing Saints Timeline, Scavenger hunt and finding the saints symbol ended up with snacks.It was a great time.

Since it was the month of Holy Souls, Candy box ideas  with some prayers were said many days over the month for the Holy Souls in purgatory, ideas were borrowed from Jessica's blog. The word Purgatory came from Latin word purgare which means 'to ceanse ' or 'to purify'. “It is, properly speaking, the condition of souls which, at the moment of death, are in the state of grace, but which have not completely expiated their faults, nor attained the degree of purity necessary to enjoy the Vision of God.” The idea of candy box was to say the prayer of 'St Gertrude' which Lord promised her in a vision, to release 1000 souls from purgatory every time you say the prayer with real heart. Once you said the prayer children can have a candy from the box or they can give up the candy. It was a hard time for many of our JY familes with the death of our good friend Brion.

Another very important thing in our family was Jobychayan's birthday on 27th November.Since I was in bed whole day feeling lazy,Annu and Munnu  made their own chocolate cake themselves for their dad.