I Love Catholic Decembers =)

Dear All....

i love....i simply LOVE being Catholic in December. it is such a RICH month for feasts!! i don't know about all "ya'll" (haha...HAD to throw that in.= )), but for my family we have special traditions for most all of them. We start out with the Eve of St. Nicholas, which for my family was almost as exciting as waiting for Christmas! i mean, not really, but....you know what i mean. it was exciting. and we would all make sure that we were home that night(at least when we were younger) because "St. Nick" (a family friend) would visit us and read off our names from this LOOOONNG list and then give us a tiny present(nothing special, really....it was just the thought, mostly) and a little bag of those wonderful gold chocolate coins. and that was just the beginning! then when we were ready for bed, we would put our shoes out on our stairs(of course we would always try to find the BIGGEST shoe we had!) =) and the next morning it would be filled with MORE chocolate coins and other candy and usually a book(that's my mom for ya!). And of course this feast day always coincided with my dad and sibling's birthday! Andrew's is on the 5th, and then Ruthie's and Dad's are on the 6th. so those two days were just FILLED with celebrating! =)

then.....right when we catch our breath from St. Nicholas day.....POW! we're hit with another feast day: The Feast of the Immaculate Conception! now, my family always went to Mass(because we HAVE to....=) ) but other than that, we never really did anything special as celebration of this day, and yet i've always felt really special on this day. i can't really explain it, but i love it just the same! =)

following that feast day we're hit only FOUR days later with the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe! i remember in college (especially my first two years) we would do something really pro-life that day and commemorate it specially with that. i love the story behind this feast day. my mom has different story versions and i would just sit and read them all and it still fascinates me to this day!

now, i don't know if any of you celebrate St. Lucy's feast day(which is the day after Guadalupe), but i had the American Girl doll, Kirstin, and in one of her books it tells how they would celebrate this feast with the eldest daughter dressing in a white gown with a wreath of candles on her head, and she would get up really early and bake hot cross buns and serve the rest of the family in bed. so....my mom decided to start doing that and it started with my oldest sister, and then it went to me! and my first few years doing it, i remember getting so excited! i would get up around 3 or 4am, and start the dough.....let it rise....and then bake it and serve it to everyone in bed! i loved it....and i felt so honored to have such a job! of course, with us....it was cinnamon rolls(man, i would LOVE some right now) and after a while i lost interest, which kinda bothers me now. i wish i had kept it up. *sigh*.....ce la vie!

and throughout it all we're in Advent preparing for the birth of our LORD!!!! i mean, how amazing....when you just sit down and think about it...we are SO blessed!

of course, my family being my family....we ALWAYS wait until Christmas Eve, or the day before Christmas Eve to get our tree. and then we put it up and the whole family decorates it and the rest of our house, and we put up our stockings and the presents under the tree.....and when our fireplace worked, my dad would build a fire and we would turn all the lights in the house off, except the ones on the tree, and just sit and look at it all. maybe drink some hot chocolate. usually the 22nd is the baking day, while the 23rd is the cleaning day. the 24th is decorating and getting ready for Midnight Mass, and the 25th is CELEBRATION!!! gosh, i simply LOVE this time of year!

and it doesn't even end there! the 26th is St. Stephen's day(my brother's feast day) so we usually have a nice dinner for that and before we know it there's still New Year's Eve and Day and then Epiphany to top it off!

yep. i LOVE being Catholic in December....=)

ps. what are some of YOUR family traditions for this time of year?