Holiday Cheer: Day 17

"And he said to me, 'These words are trustworthy and true, and the Lord, the God of prophetic spirits,

sent his angel to show his servants what must happen soon. Behold, I am coming soon.'"  ~ Rev 22:6-7

Faith - Today is a good day to go to confession for the beginning of the season of advent.

At Familia Catolica, they have a great idea of doing "The Adventure of Advent". Each week of advent there is a family meeting with the presentation of a Bible passage (with figures, holy cards, etc. to make it concrete), think time where the Bible passage is discussed and prayed upon, a craft, a game, and a farewell. The purpose is to show the children that advent is an adventure, a journey, a waiting upon Jesus' birth. This week's craft was to make a gameboard-like path to Bethlehem with photos of our family members as the pawn. Today we are at the "start" of the journey. Click to visit The Adventure of Advent, Week 1. For non-spanish-speaking visitors, there is a button to click that will translate the site for you. 

Homefront - Today we are decorating the house for Christmas. Chores include cleaning up the gardens, porch, and hanging lights.

Family, Food, & Fun - Tonight we are having delicious & healthy stir-fry. I find that there are three things I can make that will make even veggie-phobic kids eat veggies, and one of them is stir-fry. I recently tried something new and now the kids are really crazy about stir-fry. Check it out here.

Tomorrow, the first Sunday in advent was traditionally called "stir-up Sunday" due to the opening mass prayer of: "Stir up Thy might, we beg Thee, and come." 

According to Catholic Culture, "We begin our Advent journey to Christ's birthday, and the Church joins in its prayer begging Christ to come, to hurry and do not delay. With this request to God to "stir up" His might, this day was traditionally called Stir-Up Sunday. Many families create a traditional plum pudding or fruit cake or some other recipe that all the family and guests can 'stir-up.' This activity of stirring-up the ingredients symbolizes our hearts that must be stirred in preparation for Christ's birth."

I'm not too sure about fruit cake or plum pudding, so we're going to make Advent Cookies instead. Not only do we get to stir, but these cookies are meant to rest for 4 weeks (thus the name advent cookies) so they're perfect to make to represent that this is a time of waiting & preparing!