Fourth Sunday of Advent - Of rising water and forgotten candles...

Hi all! I hope that you all had a fabulous Fourth Sunday of Advent. Ours was...I actually don't know fully how to describe it. :-0 It was kinda crazy, but in the end, we came out strong. Let us debrief...

Saturday found us very tense. Our region was under a flood watch due to a storm that would be arriving overnight, and with part of our roof and kitchen ceiling in shambles, plus a basement that has been prone to taking in water, we were feeling apprehensive.

Exhibit A

Lovely, right? :-\ It rained all day Saturday, and despite having been dry for a few days, the ceiling started to ominously drip again. It was just this weird gray day, with us holed up and distracted. I was toying with going to the vigil Mass, but none of us felt up to it when the time came.

Overnight, the storm came and our basement flooded. Mike was up all night working with various pumps to get the water out. It went well. Our water heater pilot light went out because the water level got so high, but we got it relit. The basement is drying, all is well.

Sunday dawned with both Mike and I feeling grateful to have the storm behind us, and plans in place for appointments with various contractors and plumbers.

#sigh

The sound of running water just doesn't have the same allure anymore, ugh. But I was grateful to be on the other side of this storm, and readying for Mass.

Still feeling a bit flustered - hence the veil only halfway on my head

And Mass was *lovely*. It was a cold morning, freezing rain having made the trees look like a winter wonderland, and I felt so happy to be moving into the church to worship with our community. All four candles lit on the altar Advent wreath = sublime.

One nice recent change in our parish is that our priest decided to make some logistical changes at communion based upon appeals for additional Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion going unanswered. I don't dislike EMHC's, but they do tend to be overused, at least in my opinion. :) Instead of 4 separate lines for communion (2 EMHC's in the back, and the priest and 1 EHMC/the deacon in the front) there is now only 2 lines in the front of the church. One line is administered by our priest, and the other is administered by the deacon if he is available or an EMHC. EMHC's also administer the Precious Blood at 2 stations off to the side. I have to admit, I much prefer this situation, and it really doesn't take much longer. We always sit towards the front anyway, so we were usually in the priest or deacon's line, but there is never enough people to warrant the back of the church lines. I like all of us coming together in the front, it feels more community-like.

So that was smashing. I'm sad to retire my purple veil temporarily, but it will come back out for a grand unveiling at Lent. :0

Back at home, I was a busy, busy bee while Anne napped. I wrapped all of our presents and it felt fabulous. I hate wrapping, and the floor contortions required made my aging body sore for the rest of the day, but no matter. THE WRAPPING IS DONE! I feel victorious.

Later, Mike and I went out to dinner for his birthday, and we reflected on coming through what turned out to be a fairly stressful week with all of the water involved at our house. It was lovely.

It was only this morning that I realized that in all of the craziness, we forgot to light the fourth Advent candle with the kids, mew! This is what happens when you lose brain cells and your mind is always on a million different things. See "aging body" paragraph, above. But we lit them this morning, so all is well. :)

So now you know about my Fourth Sunday of Advent! Would you like to share yours? Linkup below! I have enjoyed sharing this Advent series with all of you.  Perhaps this can become a Catholic Librarian annual tradition. :-0

Third Sunday of Advent - A winter wonderland

Morning all! It's looking very December-like here in western New York for this third week of Advent. Christmas is getting close. It's going well; I haven't felt frenzied this Advent. It's not *completely* going as planned, but that's ok, and it's been quite wonderful. So how was my Third Sunday of Advent? Let's discuss. :) Get some tea!

I wanted to take the kids to the vigil Mass on Saturday, but the weather didn't cooperate. My husband loves attending the vigil year round, I'm more of a Sunday morning girl. But in this part of the winter? It becomes my preference as well. I love seeing the Advent candles lit against the dark winter calm that permeates the stained glass. It's just serene and beautiful. But I digress (big surprise :-0). It was snowing and snowing on Saturday, and so we stayed in. Instead, I made another go at uncovering a salvageable nativity scene. Here we have Attempt #2:

No rogue Joseph in sight...

Much improved, no? I think my mother-in-law gave us this set. It's kid friendly and sturdy and the pieces are very cute. You can see the 3 Wise Men being eager beavers over on the far right.

Close up of the normal looking Holy Family, with angel to watch over them...

And the funny thing is, whereas Anne hardly looked at the much loved Fisher Price set (Henry was obsessed with it for years), she can't stay away from this particular set. She packs the figures up into her little shopping cart and takes them into the living room where she takes them out carefully and sets them up in new and inventive ways.  The lamb visits with one of the 3 Kings and baby Jesus cavorts with the donkey. It's all quite precious. So, we have a winner.

 Sunday morning dawned a lot of accumulated snow, but beautiful, clear conditions. Mike cleared the driveway for us, and away we went to Mass:

Doing my best to imitate the rose candle.

Not the greatest photo, I had to rely on Henry since Mike was shoveling the driveway. I don't have a pink eternity veil, and those are my favorite style, so I opted for a wide pink lace headband to match my festive rose sweater. *beams*

Off we went! The roads were in pretty good condition, but parking at the church was a bit of a challenge. With the significant shoveling/snow blowing that needed to be done to clear driveways and walks, huge piles of snow took up room along the curb and in the parking lot. I went through the parking lot without success, and had to loop around to the side street again. As I turned down it, I found that I had to stop to wait for a car that was letting a woman off near the doors, clearly having the same problem I was. A moment of irritation passed through me before I realized what I was doing - I was *rushing* during a season of expectant joy. Advent is about *patience*. Not to mention that I need to be charitable ALL of the time! It was a very good lesson.

I grabbed a street spot near the parish center and hustled the kids inside. The insanity that is Getting The Children Out The Door In Dead Of Winter Gear meant that we left the house later than usual, and the parking situation meant that we were then late for Mass. This is unusual for us, but I found that I didn't mind. We did the best we could. The church was full and the Giving Tree was packed with gifts (Henry brought ours up while I got Anne settled in a pew). It was a wonderful feeling to be together on the Third Sunday of Advent, contemplating the joy that awaits us with the birth of our Savior.

The Third Sunday of Advent is called Gaudete Sunday, which in fact means "joy." The candle is differentiated from the others on the Advent wreath because of its color - rose, rather than purple. It's almost Christmas, but we still have over a week to go, and we need to just remain joyful and hopeful about what is to come. What a wonderful thing our traditions are, to remind us with this beautiful physicality of the spiritual gifts that are at our fingertips.

So now you know about my Third Sunday of Advent! Would you like to share yours? Linkup below! I'll have another of these weekly posts up next Monday for the Fourth Sunday of Advent. Loving! Perhaps this can become a Catholic Librarian annual tradition. :-0

Advent succeses and (shhhhhh!!!!) failures ;-)

Happy feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe everyone! Hank really likes St. Juan Diego, whose feast we just observed on December 9th. Tonight, we'll read all about Juan and Our Lady of Guadalupe in Henry's little saint book. I've really been enjoying this tradition we've started of reading saint stories before he goes to bed. Tomorrow is the feast of St. Lucy, and coincidentally I have a book about her for the kids that is out for delivery today. I have been keeping my poor mailman hopping, I can tell you. My Amazon Prime trial has been a resounding success. :0

This Advent, I've been enjoying the feasts that we celebrate much more than I ever have. My subscription to Magnificat is aiding in this effort, since I'm so aware of what is on the liturgical calendar for each day when I read Morning Prayer. And I've really been making an effort to share what I'm learning with the kids and start some new traditions this year. That is all going really well. We also have our Advent wreath out and have been lighting the candles each week, and the kids never let us forget about their chocolate Advent calendars, that is for sure and for certain. I've also been reading books set around Advent and Christmas, really keeping the spirit of the season in the forefront. This is all super fabulous.

There's always a point of failure though, is there not? :) I bought the kids a paper Advent calendar that I wanted to linger over each day and read the accompanying scripture booklet with them. Doesn't that sound lovely? So prayerful? Right, hasn't happened. Henry has been opening the windows each day, but he spirited the calendar away to his bedroom and peeked under all of the windows, and we lost the booklet, and...that just hasn't gone the way I wanted it to. Oh, and the Jesse Tree?

*sheepish sigh*

I'm going to admit it: I am a Jesse Tree Dropout. I have failed at this this year. Prior to the Saturday before Advent, I hadn't even thought about where we would *put* the ornaments each day. I figured we'd just stick them on our regular Christmas tree with the other ornaments. Further thought led me to believe that this approach was impractical. The Jesse Tree ornaments could get easily lost in the shuffle of the other ornaments and wouldn't stand out in any way. Then I tried to buy a separate tree for the Jesse ornaments. A frustrating trip to three stores later, I brought home this tiny Charlie Brown-looking tree that had a bright red cardinal perched on it amongst a gaggle of pine cones.

"Um, Sweetie? What is that for?"

"The Jesse Tree ornaments. Isn't it cute?"

"Well, yes, but do you think it's big enough?"

"Sure it is! The only other trees they had were these big 4 foot ones, I don't want one that big."

"Welllll...but don't you have 25 ornaments to hang on it?"

*pregnant pause*

"Oh. But they're small! Let me just go get the box..."

*eager scamper*

"Uh oh."

*sniffle*

But the time I returned that tree ("Mommy, can we keep that cardinal?" "NO! Let's never speak of the cardinal again...") and remembered to print out the guide that Michelle sweetly sent to us, it was WELL into the first week of Advent, and I still had no place to hang the ornaments.

But I have learned some things this Advent. Which is to say, I should not *pressure* myself. I have all of the Jesse Tree ornaments, I printed this fabulous guide to the set in full color, and now I have a sense of how large a tree I'll need to accommodate everyone. After Christmas, I'll pick one up for a great price, and next year I'll be all set to add this into the list of family traditions.

So, look for another Jesse Tree update in November 2014. :-0

Oh, and one final note!! It has nothing technically to do with Advent, but Advent IS the start of a new liturgical year, after all, and I wanted to freshen this blog up a bit in celebration. You'll notice that there is a brand new "About Me" tab at the top of the blog. I included a bunch of photos and information about the various things that make up my identity (*beams*), and links to some of my favorite posts on these topics. Check it out!

Second Sunday of Advent - Ours was fun, how was yours?

Hello all! I'm coming off of a super nice weekend. Of course, I will detail everything for you. :) I had a *fantastic* time at our dance performance on Saturday, I'll write about that tomorrow. Also, just a quick note that Karen from Silver Hill Treasures is hosting a giveaway for a Spanish lace mantilla through Thursday, and the winner gets to pick the color of her choice! This is a gorgeous style of veil, enter today! 

Ok, so the Second Sunday of Advent. Here is mine:

All purpled up and ready for Mass!

I took the kids to Mass for the 10 am family liturgy. Anne had been cranky, so I was praying that she wouldn't embarrass me too badly. Away we went!

The Mass itself was lovely. Two purple candles were lit up on the altar Advent wreath. Anne seemed particularly taken with this factoid. I love the special Prefaces for Advent that we're currently using during the Sunday liturgies. I noted that we're still using Preface I of Advent. Next week we may move to Preface II!

Yesterday's reflection in Magnificat was from Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, talking about the tradition of the Christmas Crib during this season of Advent, how one can set it up following the feast of the Immaculate Conception to share with Mary the immediate trepidation leading up to Jesus' birth. Love.

We made it through Mass with both children behaving well. I was grateful. Our parish sponsors a Giving Tree for families in need during the season and those gifts are due back next Sunday. Henry reminded me of that before we left. :)

Back at home, my battle with Anne to keep the Fisher Price nativity set set up nicely finally wrapped up. Anne: 1, Mommy: 0. She just wasn't really into playing with it and wanted her princess castle back downstairs, but nor would she leave the figures set up in an understandable fashion. Lots of nativity scene marauding went on while Mommy wasn't looking. I think if we had freshened up the batteries so that "Away in the Manger" could have successfully played when you pushed down on the angel that would have increased her interest in it. However, the "Away in the Manger" situation with working batteries quickly loses its charm and becomes a Near Occasion of I May Lose My Mind. Ask me how I know this.

In light of this, I crept back up into our storage because I know I had come across approximately four nativity sets when we were putting out the Christmas decorations. I thought I'd set up a nicer one beneath the tree since that is the reason we are doing all of this, no? There needs to be a nativity set up for Advent and Christmas.

Going through all of the stacked boxes in the storage was about as much fun as you would expect. The first nativity-related bag I came to I snatched up and headed back downstairs.

It quickly became apparent that I had never seen this nativity set before. I did remember both grandmothers saying they had given me nativity sets recently, none of which I remembered, so maybe this was one of those? I carefully dumped the bag out and found a motley assortment of characters. A lone evergreen tree, unlikely to be present in the ancient Middle East. A shepherd carrying a lamb across his shoulders who appeared to be made of a completely different material than his colleagues. A few sad looking sheep. *Two* cribs containing a baby Jesus. Mary. And...two other men.

*eyebrow furrow*

In no interpretation of the nativity scene would we have only two men, neither of whom appeared to be Joseph. Hum. Contender #1:

Who the heck is *this* guy?

One of the three Kings? I don't know, questionable. He's kind of tall, if that means anything. He *is* carrying something, but it's of indescernible significance. Of the two, I thought he had the most promise to be a Joseph stand-in.

"Hank, come look at the nativity. Does that look like Joseph?"

"No way, Mommy."

Mew.

I had been holding out hope for Contender #1, because Contender #2:

CLEARLY *not* Joseph

And there were no other guys in the bag. None. I had put the shepherd out but then tucked him back into the bag when it became obvious that he was way out of his element with this crew. Ultimately, this set didn't last an hour under the tree. Too weird. I need to go back through the storage.

#longsufferingsigh

After our morning adventures, I had tickets to take Henry to see a local production of The Nutcracker. I had taken him last year and he loved it. There is always a beautiful display of nutcrackers and other trinkets for sale outside the theater, and as expected, Henry and I had a blast with that. I was very easily talked into purchasing a nutcracker to display for the season, and we picked out two ornaments to bring back to Anne, who had cried when we left without her. One of the ornaments is a beautifully decorated lollipop, and when I tried to put it on the tree Anne burst into tears. She loves it so much she's insisting on carrying it around with her. I drew the line at taking it to bed with her like she requested, it had to wait on her dresser for her to wake up. I'm thinking the decorative sprinkles are not long for this world. She did try to eat them, but that's not the full reason for why a bunch have fallen off. :0

The show was just beautiful. I have a tradition with my mom of attending every year, and it's just so lovely. The mood is always so festive, and I love watching dancing. I can't wait until Anne is old enough for us to bring her.

After we got back and put the kids to bed, Mike and I made a fire and watched The Thin Man with Myrna Loy and William Powell. It's set at Christmas, so it feels seasonal. It was a perfectly sublime day.

So now you know about my Second Sunday of Advent! Would you like to share yours? Linkup below! I'll have another of these weekly posts up next Monday for the Third Sunday of Advent. Isn't Advent life grand?

Advent feast days: adding in some new traditions this year...

Hello all! Tomorrow is the feast of St. Nicholas, and so I thought I'd commandeer the opportunity to talk about some new things I'm doing this Advent. Related to this endeavor, I will soon be reviewing the first in a series of books about the liturgical year, which focuses on the Advent & Christmas seasons. That post will be up on Tuesday December 17th, so keep an eye out for it! There will also be a giveaway opportunity for the book in question! There are additional volumes that I will review as well, the second of which covers Epiphany and Lent. So excited!!

Ok anyway, I get all crazy when I talk about the liturgical year, because it's just one of my favorite topics. So where was I? Right! The feast of St. Nicholas. It's tomorrow, and this year we will be celebrating it with the kids.

St. Nicholas, of course, is where our Santa Claus tradition originally comes from, and as I emphasized to Henry when we broke the news last year that Santa Claus isn't real, St. Nicholas very much *was* a real person, a bishop. Known for his generosity, the other major story attached to him is in regards to him dropping off 3 bags of gold coins at the home of a man who was contemplating *selling off his 3 daughters* to make do. Good gracious.

We're going to have the kids leave their shoes out by the fireplace, and I bought little bags of chocolate gold coins to place in them. Henry and I will also read St. Nicholas's story in his saint book.

This is a great book, by the way. The stories are written for children' Henry's age (intermediate readers, age 8), and have lots of details that will capture their attention. I bought him the first volume, which begins with the January feasts, through June, to put in his stocking.

Ok, back to St. Nick. I'm also going to put out a small book for each child, as a gift. Yesterday, at Catholic All Year, Kendra drew my attention to a few Advent books for children, one of which concerns St. Nicholas:

The Miracle of St. Nicholas

Although it won't arrive in time for the feast day, I currently have this in my Amazon shopping cart. This Prime shipping speed is turning me into a salivating book hoarder. It will come by Monday, and I will enjoy reading it with Anne leading up to Christmas. I may have also added a wood St. Nicholas doll to my shopping cart. I'm admitting nothing.

Next Friday, December 13th, is the feast of St. Lucy, who is a favorite of Hank's. I think it's the plate of eyes that she's carrying in her hand. :0

While I was adding the St. Nicholas book to my cart (*innocent look*) Amazon "recommended" to me the following:

Lucia, Saint of Light

 

Even though Hank already reads chapter books, and this seems targeted to kids a few years younger than him, I actually think he will love this book. The reviews noted that it's for school aged kids, definitely too difficult for toddlers and preschoolers to understand, and when I mentioned a St. Lucy book to Hank last night, he gasped in joy. He loves her. This is also in my cart. *shifty look*

 

The tradition on the feast of St. Lucy, in Hank's words (since we have read her story in his various saint books at least a dozen times):

 

"So, the youngest daughter, that's Anne, right? She should wake us up on that day wearing a crown of lit candles. Carrying coffee and special sweet rolls."

 

Yeeeaahhhhh. So, we're not going to be following the St. Lucy tradition to the letter. Or, at least until we can trust Anne not to start a fire. But I'd like to look into baking some special rolls for that morning. 

Oh. And while I was shopping, Amazon had to go and recommend this:

The Legend of the Pointsettia

 

I mean, do they have no shame? I see that the book is about a little Mexican girl's devotion to the Christ Child, and references Our Lady of Guadalupe, feast day of December 12th!!!! 

 

Right, it's in my cart. I'm planning to checkout before I leave work. :0

 

I'm very excited about what we have planned from now until Christmas. We have done family Advent activities for many years, but this year I am really feeling the *Advent* message, rather than focusing on Christmas long before that actual celebration. And I've been very annoying about telling other people about Advent too, and how fabulous it is, and how they should get in on a piece of the action.

 

It's Advent fever I'm telling you! :)