Make a Super Simple Advent Wreath

How has your second week of Advent been?

If I am being honest, it has been a hard week in many ways here. Yet amidst the challenges, there have been blessings, and I am grateful for all the ways that light shines in the darkness. 

The light of Christ has been seen working in and through others, the hope and strength of the Eucharist has been found at daily Mass, and literal light has shined when my children and I have made time to sit around our Advent wreath to pray and read.

I have yet to snap a photo of those times this year, but I did take some snapshots of the making of our wreath, which I thought I would share here in case you'd like ideas for an easy way to put together an Advent wreath.

Gather Supplies

Typically, I have our Advent wreath ready to go before Advent or on the first day of Advent, but this year, I was definitely behind, only had our Advent Chain and Christmas Novena card ready as Advent began, and so spent time on the second day of Advent getting our wreath ready.

First, I stopped at a local Dollar Tree for a gold charger plate, some ribbon, and some florist foam.

After that, I stopped into our church offices to purchase some Advent candles. (If they were out of these, I would have just picked up white candles at Dollar Tree and put purple ribbons on three and a pink on on another.)

Then, later in the day - okay, maybe as darkness began to fall - the kids and I went for a walk to gather greenery.

Make a Walk in the Woods an Advent Wreath Tradition

Some years ago, we started a tradition of walking in the woods on or before the first day of Advent to find a branch to hang our Jesse tree ornaments on. Last year, that walk morphed into one for finding Advent wreath greens, too.

We are blessed to have holly trees along many local trails. We also collect any sort of evergreen we think might last throughout Advent in our wreath.

Assemble the Wreath

Because I was not been able to find a circular floral foam when I stopped by Dollar Tree, I went with two blocks of foam, one of which my kids and I opted to cut to make a cross shape, which we thought was apropos as it reminded us of the cross Jesus died for us on, linking the Advent, Christmas, Lent, and Easter seasons for us.

Then, we put the candles into the cross and surrounded them with greenery, popped a few ribbons in, and, as a result, ended up with a more circular Advent wreath.

We were delighted with how it came out - simple, traditional, and ready for us to pray a blessing and use as we prepare our hearts and home for the coming of Christ this Advent season.

Pre-Made Advent Wreaths Can Work, Too

Of course, if you're not up for a walk in the woods and making your own Advent wreath, you can always purchase a pre-made, reusable one.

For years, our family went that route.

Some years we used a reusable wreath with regular Advent candles...

 ... and some years we popped in roll-your-own beeswax ones.

In fact, it was only a few years ago that we decided to start pairing a family walk at the start of Advent with making an annual fresh-cut greenery wreath.

Any which way we've done our Advent wreath, we find that every year the light of the candles on our Advent wreath captures and focuses us especially when we've made regular time to gather, pray, and read by our Advent wreath.

No matter how your Advent has been going, I encourage you to put together a wreath of some kind to help you and yours wait in joyful anticipation while giving thanks for and recognizing the light of Christ in this world.

I'd love to see a photo of your Advent wreath this year. Feel free to post one on our Facebook page.

May your Advent continue with hope and peace as you embrace moments that shine!

6 Ideas for Simple Suppers during Lent

Looking for simple meatless meal ideas to enjoy at home this Lent, share with others before or after Stations of the Cross on Friday nights, or bring to others on Meal Trains?

Let me share six categories for simple suppers that I drew up after one friend asked me for ideas since her child is going vegetarian for all of Lent, another friend asked what we'll be bringing to the Soup-n-Stations event she is hosting this week, another friend posted a meal train for a new-again mom we know, and my children and I attended a Stations and Simple Supper event at a semi-local parish this past week.

Hopefully, these ideas will get you going with your own menu planning for Simple Suppers this Lent.

1. Soup and Sides: Pair your favorite vegatarian, pescatarian, or vegan soup or stew with a vegetable or fruit salad, some hearty bread, or some crackers and chips.
2. Breakfast for Dinner: Pair a baked veggie omelet, French toast casserole, todu scramble, potato-onion-garlic home fries, vegan pancakes, or something similar with a fruit platter. Or, set out an oatmeal bar: a large pot of oatmeal with loads of delicious toppings to choose from: honey, maple syrup, cinnamon, berries, dried fruit, nuts, seeds, coconut, etc.
3. Pizza, Pasta, and Sides: Put together some pasta and sauce, lasagna, margherita pizza, spinach and feta pizza, raviolis, or whatever special diet (vegan, gluten free, etc.) alternative you like with salad.
4. Dips-n-Spreads: Hummus, guacamole, hot artichoke and spinach dip, hot bean dip, baba ghanouch, salsa,... whatever your favorite dips and spreads are... Lay them ut with some crackers, bread, tortilla chips, vegetable crudites, and sliced fruit and you're good to go.
5. Salad and...: Make salads the main dish! Enjoy ruit salad, Waldorf salad, Mexican-inspired salad, Asian cabbage salad whatever kind of salad you like paired with brea, crackers, sliced avocados, or an array of protein toppings/add ins (beans, lentils, nuts, and seeds).
6. Vegetable Casseroles: Green bean casserole, sweet potato casserole, baked ziti with lentils, vegan enchilada casserole, Mercian tortilla casserole, and.... the list goes on! Pair you favorite casserole with a fruit or veggie platter or some salad and enjoy.

I'd love to hear about your favorite recipes or other ideas. Do share in a comment.

A Simple Way to Involve Older Children in Almsgiving This Lent (or Anytime!)

When I asked my youngest what he thought we should add to our Pray-Fast-Give chain this year for fasting, one of his first answers was, "Buy food to put it in bags for the homeless."

I knew right away why he had said it.

Last Sunday, as we were on our way home from Mass, we pulled up at a stoplight where a homeless gentleman was standing. It was cold, and we had a blanket in the car, so we handed it out the window to the man, but, sadly, did not have any food, warm socks, or other things on hand to gift him.

So it is that, as a part of our Lenten practices, we are hoping to repeat a Works of Mercy effort that some of our homeschool friends and us got together for during Advent: Making Blessing Bags!

To make the bags, each family that was participated shared what they would be bringing using this helpful how-to as a guide for what the homeless might find helpful or not.

Then, upon arrival at the host house, we set up a "buffet" table of sorts with piles of 25 of each item.

Younger children went in another room and made hand drawn cards and pictures to include in the bags, while older children and parents each stood behind a pile and we passed a bag from one to another, filling it assembly-line style.

It took less than an hour to assemble all the bags, inclusive of the time it took to reassemble the few bags which had zippers break or were just not closing due to the way that space-taking items such as a bottle of water, thick socks, and foot warmers had been put in amongst smaller items.

So, making Blessing Bags truly proved to be a simple project that brought us together as a homeschool community to prepare to help our larger community.

We hope to have another Blessing Bag get together this Lent and encourage you to try it with family or friends.

Among the things in ours, were all the things pictured below, plus tuna and crackers and water.

We pray this idea inspires you in your almsgiving and would appreicate hearing your ideas, too!

6 Questions to Help Prepare for Lenten Fasting

Fasting.

How do you get your tweens and teens to want to fast?

With only one older child here who seems to "get" Lenten fasting and two who now tend, sadly, to fight fasting more and more each year, I have been thinking about how to approach this part of our Lenten practice this year.

I decided that I will start with six reflective questions, see what my family's private and shared answers are, and, then, go from there as we choose fasting ideas for our Pray-Fast-Give chain and personal Lenten practices.

Perhaps the questions will help lead your and yours into more meaningful fasting this Lent, too.

1. Are there habits that we engage in that are destructive to our spiritual health?
2. Which areas of our lives feels unbalanced?
3. What causes discord in our family or disorder in our days?
4. To what are we devoting too much time or not enough?
5. To what materials things are we too attached?
   
6. Where do we think God is asking to to grow or to let go in order to better love Him and others?

My hope is that in reflecting upon and discussing these questions, my children will find plenty of purposeful fodder for fasting during our Lenten journeys.

How do you approach ideas for fasting with your growing children? I would love to hear about it!

May God draw each of us closer to Him as we enter into Lent and place increased focus on prayer, fasting, and almsgiving (service and Works of Mercy.).\

20 Prayer Ideas for Lent

Okay, I admit it: I have not even gotten all of our Christmas books and nativity sets put away and, yet, Lent is almost here.

With the way our life's been rolling, I don't think we'll embrace many of the traditions and customs which we have for Lent in prior years. I do, know, however, that I will attempt to keep my family focused daily on the three pillars of Lent - prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.

Thus, I sat down and quickly brainstormed ideas to suggest to my children for for personal Lenten prayer practices as well as for our collective pray-fast-give chain this year. Although most of these are no-brainers, I am sharing them here in case they might inspire you in deciding what to focus on or add to your own Lenten journey with prayer

1. Attend Mass daily whenever possible.
2. Make a spiritual communion together on days when we cannot get to Mass.
3. Make frequent confessions.
4. Get to Adoration.
5. Spend extra time reading Scripture.
6. Get back to praying the Rosary together more often (as opposed to Mom praying it on her own.)
   
7. Read The Creed in Slow Motion together.
8. Attend all or part of a local Lenten mission.
9. Pray the Stations of the Cross.
10. Make a special prayer notebook and list all of the people in our lives that need prayers. Pray for them daily, and add someone new daily.
11. Return to doing a guided examen at nights.
12. Pray the Jesus Prayer throughout each day.
13. Reflect daily on which of the seven capital sins we have been slave to and pray for an increase in its corresponding virtue.
14. Pray together every time we get into our vehicle, not just the first time each day.
15. Pick someone new each day to offer our challenges and sacrifices for.
16. Pay special attention to the intercessions at daily Mass and choose one to pray for especially throughout the day.
17. Go to bed five to ten minutes early and spend extra time chatting with God.
18. Spend an extra five minutes a day in Spiritual Reading.
19. Notice what world event pops up on our screens at the start of each day and pray specifically for the people involved.
20. Spend several minutes in silence each day inviting the Lord to speak to our hearts,

I would love to hear some of the ways you'll be adding extra prayers into your Lenten journey.

Did You Miss One of Our Top 10 Faith Posts of 2021?

Happy 2022!  May the new year bring joy and peace to your heart, home, and homeschool.

As my family and I look forward to all the opportunities ahead of us, I am also taking a look back at some of the ways we've lived, learned, and celebrated our faith. As I do so, I thought I would share forward our Top 10 Faith Posts of 2021 in case you would like to revisit a favorite post for inspiration, find one you missed, download a free printable, etc.

I pray that as you scroll through our Top 10 Faith Posts, you will find inspiration to continue to live and grow in faith with your family in 2022. 

Top 10 Faith Posts of 2022

~10~

This is the time of year when Advent/Christmas books are often on sale. You might like to pick these ones up. We enjoy them - and have shared a short list for each week of Advent.

~9~

Is it me or does it seem that some years the liturgical season of Lent seems to creep up so quickly after Christmas?

These 15 Ways to Prepare for Lent with Kids - and the ideas and traditions they include - might inspire you to be ready this year!

~8~

We had such fun putting together and performing a semi-spontaneous Christmas Epiphany Play last year and enjoyed doing so this year, too.

If you'd like a no-rehearsal, audience-participation play for next Christmas and Epiphany, feel free to use the one we shared.

~7~

Advent traditions are a beautiful thing, but as kids grow and life changes, some traditions seem to get forgotten, lost, or, at the very least, tweaked. Others, hold fast. 

This year, I asked my kids what their favorite traditions are so we could be sure to honor them this year - and to share them to, perhaps, inspire you.

~6~

Celebrating All Saints Day has been a long-time living-the-liturgical-year tradition here and we've ended up trying out a lot of games, activities, and themed-eats. This year, we shared our favorite five. Maybe they will become favorites for you, too.

~5~

Sometimes a motto read in a book for a Catholic mama's book club ends up getting passed along on a hike in the woods and, then, gets passed along in a blog post, which, oddly, becomes a top 10 in popularity for the year. This was one of those times. 

What mottos or tidbits from mama-reads have you passed onto your growing kids?

~4~

It was a delight to end up being asked to be on the judging panel for this past year's Mary Garden Contest put on by the Museum of Family Prayer.

The contest is an annual one, so you can look for it this year, too. Winners from last year can be found on the Museum of Family Prayer Facebook page.

~3~

It always surprises me what posts find their way into the top 10. Sometimes it's the ones where I am simply passing forward information, like in this one with it's prayer too beautiful not to share. 

It's truly a lovely, little short prayer taht I think you will appreciate.

~2~

As my children get older and our school-work-life balance gets even fuller, our efforts to live the liturgical year sometimes slip. Simple eats like the ones we enjoy on Saint Padre Pio's feast day draw everyone to the table to celebrate though.

What simple eats bring your teens to the table on feast days?

~1~

Have You Read Counsels of Perfection for Christian Mothers? You Must! It is truly a gem! I am so glad a local Catholic mama book club I sometimes participated in introduced me to it. It's an inspiring and practical read that you can access for free!

***

As I've said before: Please never be shy about making any requests for content you'd like to see here! Like many folks who share online, I have more ideas in my head than focus and time to share about them all. So, I like to tailor what we share about here to what you'd most like to see. I can only do that if you let us know.

Please leave a comment here, let me know via social media, or just tell me next time you see me (since some followers here actually know me in real life, too!)  We love feedback! 

Oh, and if you'd like to browse past Top 10 collections, find them here.

May God bless you a yours 2022 unfolds.

Start Advent with The Giving Manger {A Homeschool Review Crew Review & Giveaway}

  Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew.

Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links. This means that, at zero cost to you, I will earn an affiliate commission if you click through the link and finalize a purchase.

Can you believe Advent starts in just a few weeks? Would you like to slow the final days of the year down by living simply with service? Then, take a peak at The Giving Manger from WorthyKids.

I've had the happy opportunity to review this beautiful boxed gift set and am so pleased to have it now as it will be a delightful addition to my family's Advent.

I am also excited to share with you about this sweet way to focus your family on service as you prepare hearts and home for Jesus and to let you know about a giveway! (See giveaway details at the bottom of the post.)

What Comes with The Giving Manger Set?

The Giving Manger boxed set comes with a heartwarming hardcover picture book written by Allison Hottinger and illustrated by Emily King with simple cut-paper illustrations.

The book presents the tradition of The Giving Manger, which is based upon Matthew 25:40b, by telling the story of how two children - Anne and Ben - come to focus on giving gifts of service and discovering the true meaning of Christmas when their father gives them a gift which, at first, they do not appreciate. 

The book also offer Manger Moments (service ideas for children, teens, adults, and families) and Manger Memories (a place to record your service through the years.)

In addition, the gift set includes everything you need to start The Giving Manger tradition in your home: 

• A simple wooden manger that should be placed in a visible spot in the house to help keep the idea of giving front and center throughout Advent.

• A bundle of straw that each person in the household will place - one straw at a time  in the manger each time an act of service is performed.

• A sweet, simple swaddled Baby Jesus that will be placed in the manger on Christmas after the manger is full of straw from all the acts of service offered during the Advent season.

Well-crafted to last years to come, The Giving Manger is definitely something I would recommend!

What a Blessing This Well-Crafted Kit Will Be for Us

With The Giving Manger, our family can do away with the old upcycled kids craft that stood in as Jesus' manger for us in the past.

Plus, our Works of Mercy Wisemen will have a lovely new book and set to get into as they encourage my family to move through the "Little Lent" of Advent by making small sacrifices for the Christ Child.

The Giving Manger will, at the same time, help my family focus on our Christkindl tradition, where each of us picks another person's name and secretly does acts of service for that person.

I cannot wait to bring new life to our existing family traditions with this sweet new book-manger- straw-baby Jesus set.

I bet you and yours might like the set to refresh or build your own traditions, too.

Giveaway!

I so appreciate The Giving Manger and am excited to share with you that WorthyKids is graciously giving away 25 sets to lucky families that are residents of the United States or Canada. Winners will be notified on or before November 15, 2021, so click through to enter soon if you want a chance to receive a free kit!

Learn More

Nearly 30 Homeschool Review Crew families have been blessed to reviw The Giving Manger. Some are doing personal giveaways in addition to the main giveaway mentioned above. So, be sure to click through to find links to each review.

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