A Full Day With Saint Nicholas

For this, our third installment of our "Christmas Traditions" study, we chose to learn more about St. Nicholas.

My boys and my wonderful niece and nephews with their St. Nicholas crafts.

We began our day with this fun "draw and tell" story.  Basically, you tell the story of St. Nicholas throwing the bags of gold coins in the poor man's window while at the same time drawing on a white board (paper, chalkboard). Each part of the story adds one more line or element to the drawing. In the end, you have a bag of gold coins.

We moved on to read some information from Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany in the Domestic Church. This was a nice jumping off point to discuss who St. Nicholas was, how one becomes a saint (in the official sense), where St. Nicholas lived (Asia Minor/Turkey), what he is patron of (lots of things, but especially children), and some of the customs that surround St. Nicholas.

We even did a little math- discussing what century (4th) St. Nicholas was born vs. what years he lived. We drew a timeline on the board so that the kids could see the relationship between the centuries and the years. This can be confusing for children. Also, subtraction to figure out how many years ago St. Nicholas lived.

I used the following resources for our discussions as well:

St. Nicholas at Domestic-Church

St. Nicholas Article by Amy Welborn @ St. Nicholas Center

St. Nicholas: Love in Action by Lois Rock @ St. Nicholas Center

On to Craft Time (completed projects in first picture):

THEN:

Surprise, surprise- when Mark went in the house (from the school room) he found that St. Nicholas had visited and left treats in every one's shoes!

Thanks to Shower of Roses for these great coin covers- how cool is that? The bags filled and ready for shoes with Holy Cards printed from St. Nicholas Center.

Break Time:

With treat bags in hand, the kids settled down to watch Nicholas: The Boy Who Became Santa.

The Rest of Our Day: 

Kids finished crafts while I read The Miracle of Saint Nicholas by Gloria Whelan.

We played a few rounds of Roll for Saint Nicholas! A fun game- you have to draw what St. Nicholas part (miter, robe...) the dice says (each part has a number). If you roll the same thing for a second time, you miss that turn. The first to draw a "St. Nicholas" wins. It is pretty funny- one player might only have an "eye" while the other the "miter" and a "beard". We enjoyed this.

 Had a drawing lesson on how to draw Saint Nicholas. 

Ate lunch and watched (instant watch Netflix)  VeggieTales: St. Nicholas: A Story of Joyful Giving. The younger kids love this movie, but the thing that cracks me up is how appealing the humor is to older kids- even I had a chuckle or two!

Whew!! The day is done. Almost. We do still need to set our "St. Nicholas table" for tonight.

Year One "Christmas Study"

Christmas in Mexico/Los Posadas

Year Two "Christmas Study"

Christmas in Sweden/St. Lucia

Christmas in Mexico::Las Posadas

The novena (a prayer said on nine consecutive days) of Las Posadas traditionally begins on December 16th and continues through Christmas Eve, each night a search for shelter, a series of refusals, and a final resting place.

Two years ago, we began our "Christmas Traditions Around the World" study-- that first year we learned about a custom that originated in Spain. There is so much rich tradition behind "Las Posadas" and the actual procession varies from region to region, so I won't explain it all here (see resource list below) but the kids learned a lot!

After reading some books and discussing the meaning behind this beautiful tradition, the kids pulled together some costumes (loosely speaking) and reenacted "Las Posadas". We had to make some modifications to fit our situation and time frame, but all and all I think it gave the kids a good idea of what it would be like. We had a little script-- there two parts-- the inn keeper and Joseph. Each sings (or in our case says) his lines.

Joseph knocks loudly and asks for lodging for himself and Mary. The innkeeper responds-refusing lodging. (the inn keeper stays behind the door, but ours wanted to be in the picture)

Our peregrinos (pilgrims) processed around the yard 8 more times to come around and make their request again-- different words are used each time, and each time lodging is refused by the inn keeper.
                                                                                                                                         

Once he has realized that the Queen of Heaven is at his door (the 9th time around), the inn keeper throws open the door and welcomes Joseph and Mary inside. Then everyone from inside and outside sings songs-- in our case, Silent Night (because our pianist could play it :)). We ended the whole thing with some hot chocolate. No matter what region I researched, Las Posadas always seems to end with hot chocolate and cookies!

Happy cousins, Paul and Julia, played Joseph and Mary (it is considered an honor to be chosen for these roles).

Online Resources:

Noche Buena- Christmas in Mexico

Catholic Culture

Books:
Christmas in Mexico
The Night of Las Posadas by Tomie dePaola
These two books were especially helpful:
Carlos, Light the Farolito
Las Posadas: An Hispanic Christmas Celebration (we used the script from the back of this book)

Year 2: Sweden (St. Lucia)
Planning
Our Day with Christmas in Sweden

Our Day with Christmas in Sweden

While making our preparations, I took some time to explain to the kids about St. Lucy (who was from Italy) and about how the people of Sweden celebrate her feast day (see previous post for online sources with this info.).

The nearest thing I could find to an explanation as to why the people of Sweden put so much emphasis on a saint from Italy was one line from an online article that said that the Swedish people believe her intercession saved them from famine. Possibly they asked St. Lucy to pray for them because she is believed to have brought food to persecuted Christians who were in hiding.

So, our day began with information and preparations:

My head chefs created our alternative to St. Lucy bread. (cinnamon rolls) Julia works on the crown for St. Lucy. Paul is busy cutting stars for the Star Boy hat. When the props were complete, we did our own reenactment of St. Lucia Day. Our oldest (and only) girl dressed as St. Lucia while the boys took turns being the Star Boy (and all 5 of them wanted a turn- should have just made more hats!). St. Lucia processed in to wake the rest of the "sleeping" family with a plate of hot rolls (we kept the hot drinks in the kitchen for safety purposes ;))The "sleeping family" got a little wild after the first few reenactments... Beautiful Julia with her crown.

After our procession, we took hot drinks and "St. Lucy Bread" out on the back porch. The kids ate while I read to them and we talked about Sweden and its Christmas customs. The kids all were interested in the fact that straw is an important decoration in Sweden- it reminds them that Jesus was born in a stable. Also, the goat is pretty important with the Swedish people. A straw goat (a large one) stands by the Christmas tree and is suppose to protect the people from bad things.

After a lunch break (we watched our movie on Sweden while we ate), the kids colored their St. Lucia paper dolls and started to work on their paper doll set from Paper Dali (see previous post).

Mark coloring his St. Lucia (free from the Paper Dali blog) .Julia, Christian and Kyle work on decorating a tree with Swedish Christmas ornaments (part of the paper doll set purchased from Paper Dali).

A note to add that I found an additional bit of information confirming the importance of the above mentioned "Christmas Goat". In Jane Yolen's "HARK! A Christmas Sampler" there is a short paragraph stating that in Scandinavian Christmas celebrations goats play a large roll. Naughty children need to be on the look out or they may be butted by the Yule ram. To remind children to be good, Swedish parents put a straw goat among the Christmas candles. In Norway, food is left out for the Julebukk (as he is called there) -- if the dish is empty the next day, it means good luck, and if the dish is filled with grain, it means a good crop. Denmark's Yule ram is more of a hobbyhorse that is covered with goatskin and has a ram's head made of paper or wood.

This post lists all the resources we used.

Christmas in Sweden::Plans

Saint Lucy, you did not hide your light under a basket, but let it shine for the whole world, for all the centuries to see. We may not suffer torture in our lives the way you did, but we are still called to let the light of our Christianity illumine our daily lives. Please help us to have the courage to bring our Christianity into our work, our recreation, our relationships, our conversation -- every corner of our day.

St. Lucy, Pray for us.

Today was the second installment of our "Christmas Traditions Around the World" unit study. The first was about this time last year when we learned about Christmas in Mexico. I hope to post pictures and explanations later, but, for now, this is our resource list:

We checked out this informative book from the library- our local library carries titles for several countries. It gives a nice overview of the customs and symbols of Christmas in Sweden.

Also from the library. A dvd about family life in Sweden. It is not my favorite from the series, but it was nice to be able to see families from that country- how they live, speak, learn. It was a nice filler to our day -- we watched it on lunch break.

While trying to find things on the Internet, I came across a site that said that I could find an article about St. Lucia Day in this book- as it turns out, we own it! So, I was off to find the book (it was in our advent box) and the article. :)



Swedish Family Paper dolls purchased from Paper Dali.



Kirsten's Suprise... is about a Swedish family's first Christmas in America.



Free paper dolls (colored by Julia and Kyle) from Paper Dali.



Articles from the Internet (see links below). I like the one from Domestic Church because it offers the information at 3 different levels of understanding (readiness might be a better word). I used the information labeled "Young Families".



Our table full of supplies.



The Paper Dali blog, a wonderful resource, was the jumping off point for our whole study. Before I came across it, I was not sure how we were going to go about putting together our day. This post on the Paper Dali blog includes a free printable paper doll of St. Lucia and an entire unit study. We also purchased the Swedish Family paper dolls and are planning on making the St. Lucia and Star Boy craft.


Most of the Internet information (other than from Paper Dali) that I was able to find originated from the Family in Feast and Feria blog.

These are the sites we used:

Kiddley: Paper St. Lucia Crowns and Hats
The Domestic Church: Saint Lucy

The Legends of St. Lucy: A Telling by Eldrbarry

How it all came together: Our Day With Christmas in Sweden