Making Christmas special with your family!

by Communications Director | Dec 20, 2018 | School, The Latest

Our parish school’s Catholic Identity Subcommittee is wishing all Prince of Peace families a very Merry Christmas and New Year. We hope that your family is able to enjoy this special time of year together and most importantly to experience our Lord in a deeper and more meaningful way.

In order to help our families do this, we would like to suggest a few ways to incorporate the liturgical calendar and its many wonderful opportunities to enrich the faithful lives of our families! Here are just a few ideas from your Catholic Identity Subcommittee but many more wonderful ideas can easily be found on-line!

• First thing Christmas morning, before opening Santa’s gifts, process throughout the
  house singing “O Come all Ye Faithful” as we place all the baby Jesus in the nativity
  set. End the procession with a family member (possibly the youngest person who can
  read) reading us a short account of the birth of Jesus from the Gospels.
• Throughout the Christmas season (until Epiphany on January 6), we light a white candle
  in the middle of the Advent wreath and sing “O Come all ye Faithful” before saying
  Grace at dinner each night.
• Moving the “Three Wise Men” from a nativity set each night from Christmas until the
  Epiphany so the kids have to find the three wise men on their journey to find Jesus.
• Do a 12 days of Christmastime celebration starting Dec 26th to Jan 6th Epiphany (or all
  the way to Candlemas/Feast of the Presentation on Feb 2nd!) by keeping all decorations
  and celebrations up and/or with small gifts and surprises for each member of the family
  each day (examples would be a special homemade treat, a small gift like a book or
  socks, a family activity). This is a special way to continue the joy and celebration of
  Christmas through the liturgical Christmastime.
• On Dec 26th Feast of St Stephen go out as a family to help the less fortunate (donations,
  soup kitchen, etc)
• On Dec 27th Feast of the Holy Family plan an epic family day. Start by going to Mass,
  then draw ideas from all family members from a hat to decide each activity throughout
  the day.
• On Dec 28th Feast of the Holy Innocents when we remember the innocent infants King
  Herod killed for fear of the baby Jesus the family can do one or all of the following: 1)
  bless the children at home by invoking the Trinity as a sign of the cross is traced on each
  of their heads; 2) pray for aborted babies and an end to abortion; 3) eat soft or red
  foods (pudding, oatmeal, jello, red velvet cake, etc); 4) let your children rule the house
  for a day by picking a family outing and dinner menu.