To give a little back drop...we have always talked about starting our own traditions when we have children. One of those traditions was to celebrate the feast day of the saint our children are named after. When we first talked about doing this, I wasn't sure what age to start at. This year, since my eldest is 4, she seems to be more aware of what is happening around her and very aware of her ever growing faith.
So here we are, October 1st, the Feast Day of St. Thérèse of Lisieux. We gifted Therese, the night before, with her very own St. Thérèse medal on a necklace.
I really wanted to find a few recipes or foods that the Saint liked, maybe some decorative ideas, and a few things Therese could do by herself while I prepped everything while my two youngest slept during their naps. I found a really great blog, a couple in fact, just for this day!
Shower of Roses was the main blog I looked at for all short of ideas. She has a very special devotion to St. Therese and had a lot of information that even I did not know about and Thérèse is one of my patron saints! She has a lot of great ideas and activities that will last you a few years (and maybe even more!).Within her blog, she had some really great sources linked to other blogs I looked at for the food ideas. The one I read was called Catholic cuisine.
Food ideas:
-- We had a Rosy Punch to drink this evening. It consists of frozen fruit punch concentrate, frozen lemonade concentrate, concentrated tea, White Grape Raspberry Juice, and 7-up. There is an alcoholic version for the adults, but since we have little ones, I made the kid friendly version. When I went to the grocery store to get the items for this punch, I didn't write everything down and just went off by memory. So instead of the lemonade concentrate, I grabbed orange juice and I got sparkling white grape juice instead of the raspberry and 7-up. It turned out pretty well, but I think the lemonade would have be better with the tea and would have made the juice more of a "rosy" color that this orange.
--For dessert, we had St. Thérèse's favorite treat, eclairs! I just bought some frozen mini eclairs, but you can make your own with lady fingers, whip cream, and chocolate frosting. Just cut the lady fingers in half, fill it with the whip cream, and frost the top of them. It was a first for Therese to try them, and she ate 4!
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| Our mini eclairs! |
Activities:
--I printed out some coloring pages of St. Thérèse for Therese to color. She really enjoyed them and kept asking me to print off more for her to color! I could only find a few working links on Shower of Roses' blog. They really don't have many coloring pages of her. I am hoping next year I can find a coloring book with the saint in it.
--While she colored, we watched the movie Therese that we had on DVD. She really liked it and wanted to watch it again right after it was over! She did ask some question during certain parts of the movie, like why she couldn't eat towards the end, and asked if she was in heaven when she saw her die.
Decor for the evening:
--We already had a St. Thérèse statue (like I said, she is my patron saint!) and also a 3rd class relic that we found at our local Veritas store in Dayton, OH. I put those as our center piece at our dinner table.
--I made up some paper roses using orange, pink, and white (my girl's favorite colors). I was hoping to have some red paper, but I guess I used them all last Christmas! :-D
--In 2010, I made a St. Thérèse costume for my eldest for Halloween. One of the things I made was a braided crown with felt roses glued around the outside. It was in reference to the crown of flowers she wore before her burial.
I first had it on the table in as part of the centerpiece, but decided to let Therese wear for the rest of the evening. :) As she went to sleep, and I cleaned up the dishes, I put the crown back where I had it when I first put the decorations out.
-- I will probably leave out the decor on the table until the 3rd since that is the traditional feast day of St. Thérèse.
At the end of the night, while my husband and I tucked her into bed, we said the chaplet of St. Thérèse (pictured above). We can recite this for 9 days, or for 24 days straight. I had pick this up when I went on a woman's retreat shortly after Therese was born. I had wanted to start a devotion to her, but never got around to it. This year, I wanted to start it with my daughter on this day.
Happy Feast Day St. Thérèse!
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| Coloring her St. Thérèse pictures. |
--While she colored, we watched the movie Therese that we had on DVD. She really liked it and wanted to watch it again right after it was over! She did ask some question during certain parts of the movie, like why she couldn't eat towards the end, and asked if she was in heaven when she saw her die.
Decor for the evening:
--We already had a St. Thérèse statue (like I said, she is my patron saint!) and also a 3rd class relic that we found at our local Veritas store in Dayton, OH. I put those as our center piece at our dinner table.
--I made up some paper roses using orange, pink, and white (my girl's favorite colors). I was hoping to have some red paper, but I guess I used them all last Christmas! :-D
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| Decor on the dinning table. |
--In 2010, I made a St. Thérèse costume for my eldest for Halloween. One of the things I made was a braided crown with felt roses glued around the outside. It was in reference to the crown of flowers she wore before her burial.
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Her costume in 2010
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I first had it on the table in as part of the centerpiece, but decided to let Therese wear for the rest of the evening. :) As she went to sleep, and I cleaned up the dishes, I put the crown back where I had it when I first put the decorations out.
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| Wearing her crown at dinner. Surprisingly it still fits :-P |
-- I will probably leave out the decor on the table until the 3rd since that is the traditional feast day of St. Thérèse.
At the end of the night, while my husband and I tucked her into bed, we said the chaplet of St. Thérèse (pictured above). We can recite this for 9 days, or for 24 days straight. I had pick this up when I went on a woman's retreat shortly after Therese was born. I had wanted to start a devotion to her, but never got around to it. This year, I wanted to start it with my daughter on this day.
Happy Feast Day St. Thérèse!
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