Celebrations

How the Grinch stole Christmas

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Most of us know the famous Dr Seuss story where the Grinch is able to infiltrate Whoville and steal “Christmas” from right under the little Who’s noses.

If you are a Christian in these modern and secular times this may be an all too familiar feeling – that Christmas is being stolen from under us and transformed into something that could be called worship, but certainly not that of Christ Our Saviour!

It is the worship of gifts, money, decorations, food and festivities and all under the popular term of “happy holidays” – a very non Christ like term.

So what can we do? How can we keep Christ in Christ-mas?

Of course it starts with our spiritual lives and our personal worship of Jesus. He must be born in the stable of our heart. If we have this part right then we are on the right track as we will be a beacon for others as the light of Christ shines forth from us. But there are practical things we can do too.

Do not adopt any of the popular secular terms associated with Christmas. “Happy holidays” does not represent Christ in any way.

Do not buy anti-Christmas propaganda! This means only sending holy and appropriate Christmas cards, even to non believing friends (this has the added bonus of a holy image being displayed in a non- Christian home, even if it’s only for a short time).

Ask your post office specifically for religious Christmas stamps. If we don’t create the demand they will not supply them.

If you are celebrating Christmas with some non Christians do not adopt their accepted methods of celebrating. Keep your interior recollection and keep the day holy! Set a positive example.

Make Christ centered family traditions. Mass, advent wreaths, special prayers are just a few holy devotions. One of our traditions is to set an extra place at our Christmas dining table for The Unseen Guest.

It is an absurd thing to throw a great big party on someone’s birthday, sate ourselves and make merry, all the while ignoring He whose birthday it is, especially when it is the birthday of the King of the universe!

Merry Christmas and abundant blessings to you all!

This post was co-authored by my husband Patrick.

Happy Easter!

by Kelly 5 Comments

Last year we dyed our eggs with regular kitchen food dye, but this year husband got his hands on some Greek easter egg dye (basically food dye but much stronger colour). Aren’t the colours amazing?!
The trick to the shine is to rub olive oil all over the eggs after dyeing and drying.

Wishing you all a very happy and holy Easter!

A sewist in the making

by Kelly 1 Comment

My 6 year old wanted to give her Grandmother an Easter gift, so I (naturally) suggested a fabric item 🙂 After some discussion we decided she could use my sewing machine for the first time. Great excitement, mixed with some anxiety on my part, followed.

We transferred this beautiful image of Our Lord onto some homespun, sewed on some borders, along with some ribbon for hanging, some wadding and backing. I was surprised how quickly she got a feel for the machine. I was pleased too.

Having completed the wallhanging ready to gift to her Gran on the Easter weekend, we received a card from the dear lady herself and were amused to see she had chosen this very same image for our card! We think she’ll like it!

Too tired, can’t be bothered etc…

by Kelly 1 Comment

It’s not that I haven’t been doing anything, rather that I’ve been doing a lot and I’m all tuckered out!
So I’ll wish you all a Happy and Holy Christmas early in case I don’t make it back here before the big day.
May your hearts be filled with the joy that Our Lord so kindly offers and be at peace, surrounded by love this Christmas.

God bless

Birthdays and sunshine

by Kelly 3 Comments

July is the month of birthdays in our family, with 4 out of the 6 of us celebrating. This means I spend a lot of July in the kitchen, but is there a more perfect time of year than Winter to be baking?

A 2 year old girl must have heart cookies!

Mmmm!

Red velvet cake recipe from Joy of Baking (I dare you to go to that website and avoid drooling all over your keyboard!) I used whipped cream and buttercream frosting instead of the traditional cream cheese frosting. A little hint – next time I’ll decorate with cream and buttercream frosting the day before, it was much better on the second day.

I even found time to sew and dye at top for myself, what a rare occurence! I won the Ottobre women’s top pattern from the Crafty Mamas blog. Highly recommend – excellent pattern!

So after all the fun and excitement of games like being dragged through the house on a quilt by a mother

who is feeling very unfit, this little princess conked out early and missed her own birthday dinner!

Thanks for reading along, bye for now:)

Happy Easter! + a lot of baking and a little crafting

by Kelly 9 Comments

I’ve been busy preparing for Easter this week, so don’t have a lot to show for myself. The kitchen has been constantly occupied, preparing tasty treats for Easter Sunday as well as our regular meals.

These buns are awaiting their piped crosses.

And because I’ve been in the kitchen so much my craft time has been very limited, so I’ve been making smallish embellishments that will come in handy sometime.

I’m thinking brooches, hair ties, quilt attachments?

The children and I are going to try this tutorial for dyed eggs this year – they look great!

I’ll be having a little blog break over Easter so I hope you all have a joyous and peaceful Easter. See you soon and God bless you all.

Saint Gemma Galgani

by Kelly 4 Comments

Today is the feast day of Saint Gemma Galgani. As one of our girls is named after her we had a little tea party to celebrate.

Not suprisingly, her favourite colour is pink! In addition to the pink cupcakes we had strawberry milkshakes.

I made little sugar frosted flowers out of fresh geraniums and discovered that a geranium in the bud stage looks marvellously like a miniature rose bud!

Hope you’re having a great day whatever you’re doing. God bless.