Help
With Your Rule
Toddlers & Feast Days
Dear Holly,
We have two young boys, 2 years old and 6 months. We would like to start celebrating feast days with our oldest, but don't know where to begin. We have never celebrated feast days and were wondering how to do so with a young toddler. Any advice you have would be greatly appreciated!
Labels: 4th P Parent
posted by Holly at 1:24 PM
3 Comments:
At this point in your life, you are now going to begin to develop your own family traditions. It is an exciting time and a blessed activity. There are any number of good Liturgical-Year celebration books out there, as well as many online ideas. I am sure MROL readers will have some suggestions for you.
I personally like the book "A Treasure Chest of Traditions for Catholic Families" by Monica mcConkey. Contact is ArmaDei@aol.com She has a number of varied types of activities, depending on yoru energy level and the ages of the children. I recommend it.
But also, personally, I have carried some traditions on from my own family life. I have also gravitated toward a more simple celebration, because I knew simple was something I could sustain - which could be as basic as a special dessert with supper, a reading of the saint's life or the meaning of the feast, a picture to color and a different prayer for the evening family prayer time.
Each family must find their own way to celebrate and honor the feast in their homes, based on family charism, personal temperaments, talents and energy!
On the feast day of St. Isidore (near the beginning of our summer break from homeschooling), we said a rosary outside in the evening, with candles lit around our garden statue of Jesus. The kids caught fireflies afterward...what a memorable evening!!!
My friend always remembered as a child they put a pair of shoes outside their bedroom doors and Santa would leave a piece of candy on the feast day of St. Nicholas.
Let the kids pick a saint from a picture book of saints and dress up on All Saints Day/Halloween.
Do simple magic tricks on the feast day of St. John Bosco like he used to do to get the attention of little boys before he taught a lesson.
We really wanted to celebrate our children's name days (on the feast days of their patron saints), but since we had always hoped to have a large family, I was hesitant to introduce anything complicated. A friend of mine gave us a brilliant suggestion: Have one really large fancy plate that only gets used on name days, and the special person gets to eat their supper from it. So I bought a big gaudy plastic plate from the Dollar Store (it was all I could afford - and the kids think it's beautiful!) and they get a big kick out of it when it's their turn. You might already have something in the house - like a glass serving plate that you were given as a wedding gift and have never used? Hopefully, over time, we'll expand our name day traditions and read the life of the saint, or have a special picture to put up, or a prayer for that saint. But right now, this is working for us!
Another idea our kids really enjoy, is the celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe in December. We simply eat mexican food for supper (which can be as simple as ground beef tacos, or you can go all out and try different authentic dishes.) My husband downloads a few Mexican songs and plays those during supper. And sometimes we goof around and attempt to do the Mexican hat dance. That's it. Pretty basic, but the kids love it. Oh,and last year I got my act together and laminated a picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe so we could talk about the symbolism in it. And we ordered a kids cartoon version of the story for them to watch. Maybe some year we'll make a pinata...
All the best in creating your family's traditions!
Post a Comment
<< Home