Leila Marie Lawler's Blog, page 59

{pretty, happy, funny, real} Advent is for making.

~ Capturing the context of contentment in everyday life ~

Every Thursday, here at Like Mother, Like Daughter!

In more Advent musings, I’d like to suggest that instead of spending a lot of time doing activities that attempt to explain Advent to the children, how about channeling their making towards actual gifts?

Since candles are important to our daily life here, we like to have pretty boxes for the matches (this was Habou’s idea). All you need are those craft boxes you find at JoAnn’s or Michaels (they are made of cardboard) or any nice small box with a lid. You need acrylic craft paint, fine brushes, and matches and the strike plate off the original matchbox (just cut it off with scissors). You need a way to attach the latter to the former (glue). Ours started out with very primitive designs back in the day and ended up this way.

You can put the strike plate under the lid or under the box itself (necessitating covering the box with its lid, probably safer). You can see that every so often we replace the strike plate — these boxes have lasted! They can give their match box with a little decorated votive candle or lantern.

My kids made tremendous amounts of gifts, mainly due to Habou’s crafting drive. She always made sure that they had paper, pencils, glue, and really every possible tool necessary to produce anything that might come to mind.

Thus, we’ve always had a craft shelf/cupboard/closet (depending on where we lived) that was full of creative possibilities. Like, every woodburning, stamping, stenciling, painting, drawing, gluing, puttying, etc. etc. possibility!

I admit that this drives me a bit batty. I personally love to make things. I’m not so big on getting small children who also need to be clothed, bathed, and fed to make things as an activity for its own sake. But I am willing to overcome my impatience to facilitate and direct (that bit is key — teach them — while maybe learning in the process) their urge to arrive at the final product. I’m definitely willing to let someone else gather them together and craft with them (which is what she did when I couldn’t, which was often and awesome — see if you can find someone like that!).

It takes forethought (until it just takes a [hopefully well organized] closet full of stuff). It takes setting aside the afternoon while the baby is napping — not always easy to do!

To that end, I’ve put together a Pinterest board of crafts that actually make sense. I won’t steer you wrong by pinning junky stuff to make for its own sake. Anything on there is useful and/or genuinely pretty. They will need some collecting and possibly purchasing of materials and tools by you beforehand, but can be done in an afternoon once they’ve gotten the directions. We’ll add to it as time goes on — and do look at my other boards while you’re at it — you may find other inspiration there as well, depending on the ages of the children we’re talking about.

Today’s {pretty, happy, funny, real} is a peek at my past week’s fun with grandchildren.

Rosie came with her family for Capt. P’s sister’s wedding. As you will recall, the family of Capt. P are our good friends and live in the next town over (as we say here). So it was a big event for all of us. Deirdre did the bride’s hair…

Maybe we will come up with more actual shots of Ellen’s beautiful and fun wedding (good thing we weren’t in charge of the photos!) — you can see a glimpse on my Instagram and also on Rosie’s.

For now, just a few shots of these darlings having a great time together. (As you will also remember, Rosie and Deirdre have had “cousin twins” twice in a row now. Nora and “Peabody” are 3 weeks apart, and Molly and “Finnabee” are 2 weeks apart!)

We loved having them together!

My little Advent series so far:

Gird Your Loins for Advent

What is Advent really about?

The Wisdom of Childlikeness

Premature or Overwhelming Christmas Parties

Celebrate All Twelve Days of Christmas!

Today begin the O Antiphons. Jennifer Gregory Miller has a good post on Catholic Culture about these last days leading up to Christmas, with their beautiful expression in the Liturgy.

(On a less liturgical note, many have asked me if I have a button for Amazon — they very generously want to shop via our affiliate link! If you click on this Amazon button for your shopping needs, as well as the others above, a little change will be thrown in the LMLD bucket. We will be really grateful!)

Share your Advent makings with us this week if you can!

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A wee chat.

The days are counting down. So much to do!

Rosie and family came into town for a wedding (which means we won’t see them at Christmas, boo, but yay for seeing them this weekend!). We had other family come in as well, so this old homestead was all full up, just as it was at Thanksgiving.

I’m trying to get some knitting done — that yarn is leftover from what I call my “Breaking Bad Afghan,” there in the background. (I call it that because as you can guess, I knit it in an attempt to remain somewhat distracted from all the intensity of that excellent but drastically draining show.)

It’s funny how yarn knits up differently depending on the size needles you use. And I have just enough yarn (I weighed it) to make another pair. I cleverly decided to tweak the pattern, after making the smaller ones, by changing needle size after the ribbing on the cuffs, just to make them a little bit more shaped.

I not unpredictably forgot to make the switch on the matching mitten for that second pair. So my last pair will be (hopefully, if I can keep it straight) one mitten with the needle change and one without.

Do you have some Christmas crafting going on? Can you show us? Just the raw materials? How is your third week of Advent? Christmas tree up? Link up with us on Thursday with {pretty, happy, funny, real}.

Now to announce our winners:

The winner of the two books, mine and the Chief’s, is Candy! 

A commenter suggested that maybe the “chipmunk” I posted that picture of on the easy chair is a flying squirrel. After looking at photos of the two, I’m thinking she may be right. Sigh.

Also, just to clear up other photo mysteries, the “red object” on the green bin is a bag of those scented pine cones that I picked up on clearance last year. Our pine cones are not very pretty, so I admit I bought pine cones. On sale. Need to do some crafting with them!

The Faithful Departed: The Collapse of Boston’s Catholic Culture

The Little Oratory: A Beginner’s Guide to Praying in the Home

The winner of the rolling pin is Amada!

Do stop by Keenan’s shop for beautiful wooden products for your kitchen (and bar). They are having a 15% off sale there, with free shipping, so go!

An email will be headed your way, ladies!

Do join us on Thursday for {pretty, happy, funny, real}!

 

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{bits & pieces} Handmade rolling pin giveaway!

Today, in addition to our links, we have a handmade rolling pin giveaway for you!

It’s a joy for me to see the friends of my children grow up and find their vocations. How gratifying for Sukie’s friend Patty to contact me and ask me to do a giveaway of one of her husband Keenan’s wooden creations! Of course, as always, I have to love the product.

She sent me a rolling pin. I have to admit, I never thought I’d be tempted to replace my old-fashioned American rolling pin that’s accompanied me through my whole married life (36+ years!), so I was a little unsure. Maybe she should have sent me the keg handle… but I don’t have a keg, so maybe not.

But — I LOVE IT. It’s beautiful. How can something so simple be so fabulous? The weight of it, the finish, the size — it’s perfect. Yes, I may be convinced to transition over to this different way of working with dough.

Would you like to win one?

Okay. Here’s the deal. Leave a comment here on this post. If you share an LMLD post on social media, you can leave another comment for a second entry.

A little more about this darling family, from Patty:

“For a few years we experienced unexplained infertility. We fostered many children and ended up adopting 3 in quick succession, each a year younger than the one before. As some had warned us (but we pooh-poohed!), immediately after the third was placed with us I found out I was pregnant and we have gone on to give birth to 3 children in 3 years. So our kids are now 6, 5, 4, 3 nearly 2, and 3 months old.
“After 6 years in Oregon, we uprooted our life this summer and took a cross country camping trip through some of the most amazing national parks en route to the east coast to live closer to family. We have always dreamed of homesteading and moving towards self sufficiency; we are slowly taking steps in that direction, raising chickens for both meat and eggs, gardening, and hopefully adding bees and sugaring to our skill set this coming spring.


“Keenan is a professional photographer and has spent the past five years as a baker, while doing woodworking and brewing as hobbies. His baking experience has directed his woodworking focus towards kitchen tools, and his love of brewing has inspired him to make some some beer-related items as well. He is regularly adding more items to his shop. You can find him on Instagram as blanchardwoodco. He has a woodworking site is and a photography site.”

On to our links:

A simple knitting project from Ginny of Small Things for the budding knitter in your life (maybe this can go along with a gift of yarn and needles this Christmas?).


I came across this moving rendition of The Wexford Carol with Alison Krauss and Yo Yo Ma. We don’t have a cellist but we have a fiddler, so we’re going to work on learning this beautiful Christmas song. You can too! Here’s some sheet music.


Rosie passed this post along to me. I recommend it. It’s not that Carolyn’s experience with her autistic son is necessarily like everyone else’s, and she makes it clear that she is not trying to suggest that. It’s just that she resisted letting the experts tell her to do things that went against what she knew was best for her child. This is a message that parents in general (including those whose children are not officially “special needs”) should heed.


Terese from the Farmandaway blog had linked up with {pretty, happy, funny, real} and her post really moved me. It’s a memory of life in a faith-filled home. She expresses very well what I try to say about living what you believe, because she grew up with it. I wish I had known her father.

“I’ve thought about why the faith seems to have “stuck” with the kids in my family to a degree that doesn’t seem typical, and I have to conclude that it is because of the way my dad just lived his life as a Catholic in all things. There weren’t these little areas of his life where we could see him saying, “Well, the Church is outdated on this issue, so I am going to do as I please.” He wasn’t apologetic for the Church’s stance on anything. He loved the Church and he was never ashamed of Her.”

The specific political moment that gives rise to this short essay doesn’t concern me as much as the philosophy of history which leads to the argument that one can be on the right or wrong side of history. (The counter-argument is one also made by C. S. Lewis in The Abolition of Man.)


Ed Peters, canon lawyer, has an always informative blog called In the Light of the Law. In this post he has a canon law take on a theme we often bring up here — leaving room for speaking one’s mind.


Here is a post about an interesting book. I’ll have to read it.


In the comments on my post about celebrating the Twelve Days of Christmas, I mentioned two links about Santa Claus that I wanted to be sure to bring up here: This “Aquinas disputatio”–style argument for Santa, and this lovely letter to the editor from G. K. Chesterton.

From the archives: In this post (which I linked to recently but today it’s for a different reason), I go into the O Antiphons which begin on the 17th. Michele Quigley has a great coloring series to do during these days.

Today is the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Enjoy the day! (I read a book about the scientific aspect of this apparition. Totally fascinating. Here is a brief summary.)

*I see from the comments on this still on-going book giveaway of my book and the Chief’s, that most of you really prefer not to have Rafflecopter, a widget that doesn’t suggest we are going commercial — but which does help give the blog exposure. For now we’ll stick to comments. We always appreciate so much when you share our posts!

Leave a comment to win a beautiful rolling pin from Blanchard Wood Co.!

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Like us on Facebook.

Auntie Leila’s Pinterest.
Rosie’s Pinterest.
Sukie’s Pinterest.
Deirdre’s Pinterest.
Habou’s Pinterest.
Bridget’s Pinterest.
Habou’s Blog: Corner Art Studio.
Auntie Leila’s Ravelry.
Auntie Leila’s Instagram.
Rosie’s Instagram.
Sukie’s Instagram.
Bridget’s Instagram.

 

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{pretty, happy, funny, real} Spotlight on a giveaway!

~ Capturing the context of contentment in everyday life ~

Every Thursday, here at Like Mother, Like Daughter!

Have you seen Spotlight, the movie about the Boston Globe’s breaking of the scandal involving priests and bishops in 2002? Usually the Chief and I don’t go out to see movies, but this time we did. I will confine myself to saying that it’s a deeply flawed yet very good movie. I cried. He felt kicked in the gut.

But if you want the whole story, you need to read the book written by my husband, Phil Lawler: The Faithful Departed: The Collapse of Boston’s Catholic Culture. The year it came out, many people gave it as a Christmas gift, which I know seems weird, but honestly, although it’s the hardest-hitting, truth-tellingest book you can read on this subject, in the end it’s hopeful. The late Fr. Richard Neuhaus called it “the best book-length treatment of the sex abuse crisis, its origins and larger implications, published to date.”

It’s also not just about Boston, although like any good analysis, it uses the details of one place to illuminate the universal issues. Phil knows the story from the inside out. He wasn’t just a reporter — he was there.

Since the subject is again in the… spotlight, you need this book. And to answer the question of “what can we do,” you need The Little Oratory: A Beginner’s Guide to Praying in the Home — because what else can we do but get closer to Christ. So we are giving both away today! It suddenly struck us that we’ve never given away both our books together, so we are remedying that, and the timing is good.

Details are at the end of the post.

Yesterday the world, as we say, was in “thwart mode.” When I look back at our archives, I find that the second week of Advent is like that: I noticed that two years in a row I got a flat tire! At least that didn’t happen.

But, as I was getting a third-floor bedroom ready for Deirdre and the Artist, who were coming back this weekend for a wedding, I pulled away the covers she had left after Thanksgiving. They were piled up on this armchair. Neatly, piled.

And underneath all of it…

And then I yelled OMG (apparently when startled I shout out acronyms).

And Chipmunk was like, “What. You wanted to live in the country. Trying to sleep here.”

And I called for Phil (pausing only to take a picture), who came with a basket, when we should have thrown a towel over it, we realized later, because it ran around the room so fast, and we pulled out the furniture, and these fell and broke:

In the grand scheme of things, I would call all this more of a “micro-thwart” than a full-on “thwart.”

Still.

There you have it.

How has your Second Week of Advent gone? Link up and let us know!

Christmas is coming! Enter to win so you can give these as gifts! Keep them for yourself! One winner will get both these books, and we will sign them!

The Faithful Departed: The Collapse of Boston’s Catholic Culture

The Little Oratory: A Beginner’s Guide to Praying in the Home

Leave a comment. We will have another really fabulous giveaway of something wooden and handmade and gorgeous this Saturday. Should we use Rafflecopter? Or just comments? Let us know. Here’s the thing: We need to spread the word about Like Mother, Like Daughter. It’s no secret that Rafflecopter can help do that. If you just share, we don’t have to use Rafflecopter… unless you prefer it.

So if you share your favorite LMLD post on Facebook, telling your friends about us, leave a second comment (for a second chance to win). And let us know what you think about how we can do the giveaways and share the blog. We will announce the winner next week.

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Celebrate All Twelve Days of Christmas! Ask Auntie Leila

I have hesitated to write about this because often people think, “Celebrate all twelve days of Christmas! Sounds like too much.” And I’m no expert, nor would I set myself up as an example. On the other hand, we really did this, all those years, learning as we went, so maybe you’d like to know…

I’m going to tell you what our family did to celebrate all twelve days of Christmas, thanks to the Chief insisting on us living our Advent, my first three children being born in December, and living on one income with all that implies.

And I am going to give you suggestions for your shopping (since, like me, you probably didn’t DIY everything starting last January, nor did you thrift any of it — but next year you will and so will I).

The gift-giving questions in my inbox can be more or less summed up by this one from dear Shawna:

Christmas is coming and I’m dreading the stress and expense. Then there’s the “hangover” that follows the spending. I have 7 children (Ages 17 – 7 months) and even with the idea of magi gifts (3: one to read: one desired; one needed) [editor’s note: we’ve also seen 4, which includes one to wear] it’s expensive. Plus the children are so fixated on the gifts that they fail to understand the gift of Christ as the real reason for Christmas. Additionally the well thought out and hard earned gifts are frequently forgotten shortly after Christmas day. We do a traveling nativity, we do sacrifices, we attend Mass. How do we simplify Christmas and make it meaningful and affordable?

Dear Shawna,

The way our society celebrates Christmas really does put a lot of burden on the parents to be magical and fulfill every wish of their child — even if the child doesn’t seem all that interested in our contortions at the end of the day because others swooped in with far more enchanting gifts — or he actually just liked the box the gift came in.

Like a lot of other things (unsupervised play for children, less pressure for outside activities, lower college tuition), if more people had more children, gift-giving wouldn’t seem so high stakes. Well. We just have to do what we can, keeping in mind that children are hard-wired to find just about everything magical, if only we could just relax a bit…

I’ve found that living liturgically, as always, contains the key to the answer, which, however, must be put into practice in the context of our own family with its likes, dislikes, and particular unique ways of doing things.

In other words, Christmas is a great time for us parents to rely a bit more on the grace of our own family life and a bit less on comparisons with other people — and thus, with the utmost naturalness, to begin to teach our children to do the same (and isn’t that the point?).

What if we, having lived Advent, also live Christmas? Which is a season? I’m going to take it for granted that we are on board with the concept of gift-giving being appropriate at Christmas time (because gifts and Christmas are delightful and magical, don’t have time to explain why)  — but we are indeed overwhelmed. Let’s try spreading things out a bit and not burdening that one day with all the “magic.”

This is what we did about celebrating all twelve days of Christmas — and we really did these things!

So on Christmas Day itself, the children open their one (1) count ’em ONE Santa present (and their other presents from guests and in their stockings, because we did not have the good sense to do stockings on the Feast of St. Nick back in the day when we should have been foreseeing this craziness) (in my defense, was having babies).

In the stockings are maybe socks, a tangerine at the foot (do collect them after a day or two to avoid yuck), a bunch of special candies, and some fun little toys.

With seven children (in your case and mine), that is already a boatload of presents!

Then in the following days gift-giving arranges itself.

Pro-tip: Make a chart or, what I did, use a long strip of paper (such as adding-machine paper because this was before we learned to Pinterest everything up) and have all the Days with their gift/activity written down and posted for all to see. Wish I had taken a picture of it! It was cute. This builds anticipation and keeps you on track. Don’t be scared.

The key is this: Half the things you were going to do anyway and (almost) half are actually quite peaceful. But you are spreading them out over the days rather than dumping them all at once into one day, or making them something separate, like vacation activities. If there is a need (and winter is coming, so yes), give the mittens and hats on the Feast of St. Nicholas. Give pjs and nightgowns on Christmas Eve Day.

Let me give you a typical scenario at our house (you must adjust according to your particulars and the day of the week):

2nd Day of Christmas: Visiting extended family with inevitable gift-giving. Or — and this became a real tradition with us — making gingerbread houses. Turns out that this “little project” we always think we are going to do is a full-on day-long (at least) extravaganza of marathon baking, decorating, and general sugar-coating of the kitchen. Since we had the birthdays during Advent, I somehow got the idea to do this after Christmas in the Christmas season. As the kids got older, our modest efforts became “gingerbread villages,” “gingerbread forts,” and “gingerbread Fenway parks.” (Bonus: the candy is all on deep discount.)

You will need Gingerbread Family Set cookie cutters, but beware: it’s only the beginning! (For instance, that church had a stained glass window and flying buttresses.)

3rd Day: A whole-family present like a board game that all can play (it’s okay if the littles aren’t absolutely included in this — they don’t really care/can be on someone’s “team” until they go play with cars) or a special piece for the Brio train, Lego, or Playmobil collection. This latter gift (say, a train bridge) results in the pulling out of the bin and the communal building of a fabulous new track. In other words, you are renewing interest in old toys with one gift for everyone.

Now is the time to put the bee in your relatives’ bonnets about these items. You know the ones I mean: The well-meaning people in your life who shower you with things you don’t want and toys that are inappropriate. These toys I’m suggesting are still in my toy closet after all these years because they are awesome. See if you can gently nudge your nemeses to give the family one of the pricier of the following things instead of their own dreaded selections:

Brio (quality substitutes are fine, eg Melissa & Doug or Ikea): starter set; expansion pack; the sort of piece that makes them pull the bin out.


The playmobil people need an excellent fort-like castle or this medieval castle.


We also like these people for general doll-house play: Arshiner Happy Doll Family of 6 People.


Also the ever-charming Calico Critters.


Board games: I just played Ticket To Ride for the first time — really fun! I only wonder why they made the cards so unnecessarily small; I know the Chief will be annoyed by having to peer the entire time. Otherwise, a good game. We also enjoy Dominion.

In the evening, we might have had a simple supper and gone caroling, which usually astonished people because they thought Christmas was over.

4th Day: (Remember, they are on vacation here.) Museum trip, Nutcracker, or ice skating — yes, we were going to do some of this anyway. Scout out the free/discount day.

5th Day: Open the box a far-off relative sent (which you cleverly did not put out on Christmas Day). Or do jigsaw puzzles. It’s good to have a quiet day in here… and, it’s okay, by the way, to have one day be more for the older kids/adults and one day more for the younger kids. It’s okay. Children learn to enjoy each other’s enjoyment. They have things to do on their own. This is all good.

6th Day: For many years we lived not far from an amazing book store, The New England Mobile Book Fair. On a day during Christmas we would plan an afternoon to browse. With seven kids? Yes, with seven kids –it’s that kind of place (I mean, I don’t know what the staff thought but it’s sort of a warehouse and I have no shame). I would get lost in the remainders section; the older kids would hunt down Tintin books; the Chief would find his favorite publisher (the books are somewhat maddeningly arranged by publisher) and settle down; the younger kids would sort of run in between us. Baby on someone’s hip. Park the toddler in the cart with a board book. Everyone could get a book or two.

If you don’t have a bookstore near you, this is the day to give the books you ordered. (Unless someone really wished for a certain book on Christmas Day, you save them for their own day so they don’t get lost in the dazzle of the toys.)

The Adventures of Tintin.

Shawna responded to my email with thanks — and the idea of beginning a read-aloud the day after Christmas, which I love:

Dangerous Journey (which I see is back in print! Huzzah!) — Best read-aloud ever. I posted about this book in The Library Project. Peruse other titles in the read-aloud category for other ideas.

7th Day: This is actually New Year’s Eve. I suggest a party for reasons I explain in this post. Maybe you have a family tradition on this day, like eating Chinese food — go for it as a Day of Christmas and New Year’s Eve. When the kids were under 14, we would often bundle them up for a trip — on the train! — into Boston for “First Night” — a city-wide celebration of winter activities, all free. We’d eat street food and get really cold. That we didn’t do the more sophisticated concert/party/midnight revelry things was never even on the kids’ radar. It’s dark by 4 and to them, it’s late.

At our New Year’s Eve party that we inaugurated in later years, we would feature smashing and eating the gingerbread creations. Schedule this in so that you don’t make the mistake either of eating them right away (unseemly) or leaving them too long (gross).

8th Day: New Year’s Day, Feast of the Mother of God: Mass (it’s a holy day of obligation), family movie. In the years that we did First Night on New Year’s Eve, we had a party with a family or two on this day, very relaxed and enjoyable.

It’s A Wonderful Life
Kit Kittredge
The movie of Tintin is cute
Here’s one for the very littles: The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh

9th Day: Enjoy that box of candy that keeps getting overlooked. (Or smash and eat gingerbread creations.)

10th Day: Family walk (one of these days is bound to be mild[er]!) — bundle up and get out there!

11th Day: Reading day. (Anything can be a Day of Christmas! Just give it a name! Nap day!!) Other thoughts: Really delving into that one gift (like Axis & Allies) that takes forever to figure out and set up; visiting an elderly relative who is just a bit far away; breakfast for supper; making a model or doing a craft; assembling the bike or what have you.

12th Day: The Epiphany. Bake a crown cake. Optional but highly recommended: Giving your gifts to each other and to the children — vs. the one Santa gift you gave on Christmas Day, remember? Often I would buy these on deep clearance at some point during the week, having now ascertained what each child actually wanted (because that’s how it the magic/burden nexus works). Or not.

My list is based on my family having been thrown very much on its own resources. But it might be that you are in a community or large extended family that supplies many activities of its own. Any special thing on that day is the gift for that day! Any particular interest your family has could be encouraged in this season! See how it works?

And do you see that it frees up Christmas Day itself to be calmer?

If you are thinking, “Well, no,” I offer the following testimonial from Rosie: “I always felt that my one Santa gift was magical; I secretly thought my friends were deprived because they didn’t celebrate Little Christmas (Twelfth Day).”  “The stockings were the best and most fun,” I remember Nick saying, not long ago.

I haven’t surveyed them all — I’m a little afraid to, because I always feel that I didn’t do a good job and that the magic wasn’t there. We parents are hard on ourselves… But Rosie encouraged me to tell you all about this, so I am.

Remember, on Christmas morning, gather the waiting children and say a little prayer at the creche where you’ve secretly put Baby Jesus in the manger after they went to bed on Christmas Eve. After the Christmas Mass, whether it was at Midnight or during the day, don’t worry that you are not being religious enough. The feast is meant to be worship and [then] celebration. Just enjoy the day together… and all the other days in this season of grace.

My little Advent series so far:

Gird Your Loins for Advent

What is Advent really about?

The Wisdom of Childlikeness

Premature or Overwhelming Christmas Parties

 

(Many have asked me if I have a button for Amazon — they very generously want to shop via our affiliate link! If you click on this Amazon button for your shopping needs, as well as the others above, a little change will be thrown in the LMLD bucket. We will be really grateful!)

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{bits & pieces}

The weekly “little of this, little of that” feature here at Like Mother, Like Daughter!

 

 

I’m going to keep it quick here so that you can read these links, let me know what you think, and get back to your prep. I have to as well. How did it get to be December already? HOW??

Some Advent reading — not by any means all that could be said about this Season we are living now, but edifying thoughts for the end of this first week: Msgr. Pope (always solid) on Four Reasons We Need a Savior; a Meditation on a text from Isaiah.


The Tao of Boyd: How to Master the OODA Loop. I love things that are a different slant on old things (in this case, the Four Cardinal Virtues, especially Prudence and Fortitude). Call me crazy, but I think a mom could learn a thing or two from this article, even though it’s definitely pitched at men.


The Suppression of Roche Abbey — How a vivid eyewitness account reveals the shocking speed and scale of destruction of Roche Abbey after the Suppression of the Monasteries in England – and the fragility of human goodness.


Have you ever seen a book like this, with a painted scene hidden in the gilt edges?


You just have to read this little piece regarding an exhortation to those about to be married, read to every Catholic couple at the start of the wedding (this was before Vatican II). Maybe share it with your pastor…


Teaching or learning music theory? This song might help!


A theology of kneeling, from then-Cardinal Ratzinger’s The Spirit of the Liturgy. I kind of want to do an online book club reading of this book, but it’s long. But it’s amazing.


Seeing education through the lens of a favorite author: Charles Dickens’ Hard Times: The Usefulness of Useless Things


This one isn’t particularly new, but I came across it recently: Mallory Millet writes on the destruction wrought by feminists like her sister, Kate Millet. Marxist Feminism’s Ruined Lives: The horror I witnessed inside the women’s “liberation” movement.

From the archives:

I posted an article (this one) on Facebook this week that got people talking about a popular homeschooling writing program, pro and con. Rather than delve into that dispute, I will give you my posts from the past on teaching your children to write. It’s easier than you think, but you have to learn something too. Get started (with books to buy for Christmas gifts, because the key is good books); mechanics (especially for Advent); sorry: you will have to learn a few things about writing; get your kids to write — but STOP TORTURING THEM; playing and writing; A Good Sentence (or what to do when you’re not panicking about teaching your kids to write); and a Tried and True Method for teaching writing (that doesn’t cost anything).

Upcoming: Remember that Tuesday is a Holy Day of Obligation in the United States — our patronal feast of the Immaculate Conception.

If you are nearby here in New England, I recommend either of these events:

At Thomas More College, Fr. Jacques Philippe will be speaking. His book Searching for and Maintaining Peace: A Small Treatise on Peace of Heart is a spiritual must-read. I’ve come to think of it as the “official LMLD spiritual text” so maybe it deserves its own post, but in the meantime, maybe we will see you in Nashua?

 

And if we could bi-locate (working on it, because I detest when I have to choose between two amazing places to be), we would be at the Solemn High Mass for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception at St. Gregory the Great Church in Stoneham, Massachusetts (at St. Patrick’s Church, confusing, I know). The music promises to be fabulous and the worship will be all it should be. I wish I could see you there! I will be going to an early Mass and will miss, boo.

Enjoy your day!

~We’d like to be clear that, when we direct you to a site via one of our links, we’re not necessarily endorsing the whole site, but rather just referring you to the individual post in question (unless we state otherwise).~


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Habou’s Blog: Corner Art Studio.
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{pretty, happy, funny, real} ~ living Advent at our house

~ Capturing the context of contentment in everyday life ~

Every Thursday, here at Like Mother, Like Daughter!

When I was (very) pregnant with Pippo, I told a priest that I wasn’t doing a very good job at keeping Advent, because I was so distracted by the expected arrival of my baby. He gently reminded me that Mary was waiting for her firstborn son just as I was waiting for mine, and that she was just as focused on Him as I was on my own baby. He said, “Ask Our Lady for the same joy and excitement for the coming of her Son as she had while she carried Him in her womb.”

I felt united to Mary in a special way that year as I counted down the days to Christmas and my due date just beyond. (I ended up going into labor on Christmas Eve, and Pippo arrived a few hours after midnight on the 26th!) But, pregnant or not, I have prayed that prayer many times since. Advent is about preparing for Christmas, and Christmas is about a baby. And who is more excited about His arrival, or knows how to prepare for that Baby better than His mother?

(For a similar reason, I love the St. Andrew Christmas Novena — it helps me stop what I’m doing and take a moment to rest with Our Lady and the Infant Christ.)

Practically speaking, there’s always so much else going on, even if it’s just recovering from Thanksgiving! This year we had my big college-student brothers-in-law here for the weekend (to give you a sense of what a culinary workout that was, know that our other Thanksgiving guests had to cancel, and I was left with a 19-pound turkey for four adults. And it was all. gone. by Saturday night, including the broth), plus an ice storm and a few folks under the weather. By Sunday, Capt. P was still sick in bed, the kids were not well enough to go to Mass, and the world was covered in a few inches of very cold water.

I had pretty much decided that we’d just have a bare wreath for a day or two until things dried out, but Pippo was adamant that we absolutely had to “gather greenery and berries and make our Advent wreath.” (Before my mother has a chance to jump in here, I’ll just say: I know I deserve it. I was very demanding about this sort of thing as a child. No tradition left behind!) So we pulled on our boots and went out just long enough to snip some branches from the one acceptable evergreen in our yard and some seed pods from the crape myrtle. Wrap it in wire, wrap it in ribbon, and we’re good to go.

I finally hung it above the table this year, which I’ve always wanted to do. And not only does it look super exciting, but it has the added bonus of a) freeing up space on the table/making it so I don’t have to be always moving it when we need more room (I usually make it on a cake stand or something so it’s easy to move without making a mess) and b) keeping it out of reach of little ones who might pull it apart (not that we have anyone here who would ever do such a tempting thing).

We pulled our two wooden children’s nativity sets out, and also got out the stable and the manger of our biggest nativity. (I love nativities. And have been given many, all of which I love, and all of which will be set up before Christmas!) We’ll set out the figures soon, but for now we just arranged the leftover branches from making our wreath around it on the sideboard, along with a string of white lights. Pippo and I gathered up some straw, which he cut it up and put it in a little cup nearby. When anyone does something especially good or sacrificial, he can put a little piece of straw into the manger so that we are making a soft bed for the Baby Jesus while we are making our hearts ready to receive Him at Christmas.

(This is the first year we’ve done the straw in the manger. We don’t always remember, but when we do, it is inspiring good works in a rather adorable way. Today while I was sitting and nursing the baby, Pippo asked me “Mama, can I do anything for you?” And I mentioned that the floors were dirty. And so he cheerfully got out the vacuum and cleaned them!)

The only other thing we’ve done so far is hang up our Advent calendars. If we had to rely on me to remember to get one in time, we’d have one maybe by the end of the first week, but since we have competent and generous relatives, we have three. The one on the far right is from Habou, and is at least 3 years old. The cool 3D pop-up one on the shelf is from my mom last year, and Sukie made us the awesome felt build-a-nativity one on the left last year.

I made the mistake of telling the kids we’d open the doors before breakfast every day. So now I have a wake up call bright and early every morning, asking is it tiiiime and whyyy isn’t Molly awake yet?

Here’s what we haven’t done, even though I meant to: our Jesse tree.

We actually have a set of ornaments all printed out on cardstock and half colored in, after a Jesse tree ornament-making party with my Mothers’ Group at church last year. But last year I just couldn’t get my act together to figure out some sort of a tree situation, and we never actually did it. This year the ice storm conveniently provided us with as many bare branches as we could possibly want, but somehow between taking the bag of ornaments out of the box on Sunday and finding a branch on Tuesday (our ornaments start with Dec. 1)… I lost the bag. No idea where it could possibly be.

Good news, though: I have a bare branch AND a backup bare branch ready to go on the dining room floor, whenever we a) find our ornaments or b) make new ones or c) give up and try again next year.

We also still have our fall leaf garlands above our fireplace and gourds on our mantelpiece (though not the moldy ones because I took those down while the turkey was in the oven on Thanksgiving, thankyouverymuch). Not to mention all the other usual “decorations” of a family of young children, aka toys and books strewn around faster than you can believe. Over the next few weeks we’ll keep pulling out Christmas things, but this is enough to get us started.

And I’ll stop now, because I’ve gone on and on, and this wasn’t supposed to be so long! But we’d love to see your wreaths, lights, candles, paper chains, bare branches piled in corners… however Advent is looking at your house this week! You can link up your blog post throughout the weekend, or post on Instagram using the hashtag #PHFRAdvent so we can find you!

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Heads Up: Advent Linkup Right Here Tomorrow!

Tomorrow our linkup is going to be about Rosie’s efforts, driven by Pippo, to live Advent at her house.

Would you like to show us how your own efforts this first week of Advent are going at your house?  Advent wreath, calendar, chain, Jesse Tree — what have you got? If all you have is a cleared-off sideboard with nothing on it, we want to see — tomorrow, right here and also on Instagram! You can link your IG here too — #PHFRAdvent

 

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Ask Auntie Leila: Premature or overwhelming Christmas parties

I went all-in at Thanksgiving (here is a picture of my table(s) before the food got there) and am just recovering — how about you?

My little Advent series so far:

Gird Your Loins for Advent

What is Advent really about?

The Wisdom of Childlikeness

 

 

I keep getting mail about Christmas parties and what to do about them.

 

Here’s one that I would say is more or less representative, from dear Suzette:

How do/did you handle Christmas celebrations held before Christmas? We would like to live the seasons of the Church, but each year the extended family  gathers for Christmas during Advent and gathers for Easter on Good Friday. [Me: Yikes, seriously?] We do not attend the Good Friday “Easter” party [Me: Phew.], but have been attending “early Christmas.” This year our oldest is nearly five and I would really like to see us be able to live the Church seasons.

And here’s another from dear Carly:

My husband and I have been hosting Christmas Day celebrations for the better part of 13 years, give or take a couple. We have six children.  Our oldest is 13, our youngest is three months. We are on one income. My husband works long hours so that I can be home with the children. Hosting Christmas Day has become too hard.  As you know taking care of your own on a daily basis is a challenge.  How do I tell my extended family that I can’t do it this year? Or maybe even next?  Thank you for your advice.

And from dear “Wondering,” whom I met at a playground get-together in Wichita this summer (I’m paraphrasing here):

Our family drives 12 hours on Christmas Eve to spend 10 or so days at my mother’s. The extended family gathers but hardly anyone cares to go to Mass, decorate a tree, sing a carol, or even make a nice meal or feast. We love seeing our family but are wondering if our 6 children (eldest, 12) are experiencing this Holy Day as they ought.

You get the idea and probably have some variation on the theme in your own life. Overwhelmingness, affection, liturgical/cultural inappropriateness, conflicting emotions, frightening expense, a sense of opportunity cost.

What to do, what to do.

I confess that for the most part, the opposite problem was the case for me — too few family members, as I’m an only child of divorced parents. And this fact makes me realize that no one blogger can answer your concerns, however committed to giving advice she may be.

But Jesus has the answers. We could ask Him. Yes, the topic is parties, which seems fairly frivolous. Should we bother Him with such pettiness? Does it matter so much?

Auntie Leila says yes, because how we spend the hours given us matters. We can’t ignore that our choices shape our children’s experiences of these times. If we spend all of Advent hopping from one glittering, candy-and-decorated-cookie, gift-wrapped, Frosty-the-Snowman-blaring, and holiday-punched event to another, Christmas Day will be a let-down (not least because we parents will be super grouchy).

On the other hand, other people are indeed the point of all our efforts here on earth! Our connections, our affection, our gratitude — we can’t ditch all that, literally at the altar of our religious convictions.

We are living in a time when the culture of faith is, as we so often hear, opposed to popular culture. People are not on the same page. We will help them by worshiping aright, yes. But not by cutting all the ties.

So this is what I think maybe we could take to prayer and talk to Him about:

1. Worship is the goal.

Every human being is made for worship. The family is where the child learns to worship, and each child has to learn anew and be given the opportunity to have memories and experiences that shape his ability to give God His due. It’s our responsibility to see that this happens. Each season in the liturgy has its own character. Let’s just decide on how our family will live all this out.

When you put the big decisions in place, the little ones follow.

I wonder what we thought that Jesus meant when He said that he would set father against son and mother against daughter? Could it be that one thing He meant that our first duty is to raise our children to worship Him? Specifically, that if on Christmas Day the main impression the children will have is that the adults are going to sit around doing whatever, it might be time to postpone that trip to your family’s for a few days?

I guess I’m asking, “What is the object lesson your child is learning here?”

2. Family is important and we are not disembodied, disconnected beings.

Let’s communicate! A party before Christmas can work — we could organize Advent songs and even a Lessons and Carols sort of event before cookies and punch, with the lighting of the Advent wreath (because who doesn’t love candles?). If it’s close to Christmas (and Gaudete Sunday, the third Sunday of Advent, is a fine time for such a gathering), carols and festive food are certainly appropriate. Is there a rule somewhere that we can’t talk things over? Is there an ally amongst the relatives who could help?

As to presents, I’ve always thought that one of the most delightful ways to celebrate the 12 Days of Christmas (after Christmas Day, to be clear) is to designate one of the days to open a box that’s been sent from a generous relative. That way, Christmas Day is relieved of what can often just be gift overload, with well thought out presents given hardly a glance. A box a few days later is always exciting.

Can relatives be convinced that this is the way to go? I hope so.

3. Office parties (and their ilk) are dispensable.

If you want to go, go. If not, don’t go! Don’t wear yourselves out. If it’s specifically a church “Christmas” party during Advent, I wouldn’t go (and I would tell the pastor why). Too confusing to the children to have the church seem to be at odds with what we are trying to teach them.

4. Hosting is important if you can swing it.

Thinking of Carly’s question, above, about Christmas Day:

If your hosting takes the form of morning to night with present unwrapping for everyone in a large, extended family, why not consider having “tree/present” time just for your own family and having the dinner and gathering later, after all that has taken place?

Or what about suggesting a gift exchange where you draw names out of the hat so that there isn’t an exponential number of gifts? Another solution is to pick one of the 12 Days — New Year’s Day is the Eighth Day and the great Feast of the Mother of God — to have your extended family party. And of course, there’s the Feast of the Epiphany, which could involve crowns and cake!

If the issue is more affording the meal and all that goes into hospitality, can you simply ask for more help? Make it a pot luck? Dessert? Brainstorm how to do it frugally? I am always so done with turkey by Christmas, and would much rather have roast beef or ham or really anything else, but for sure for many years I bought the extra turkey at Thanksgiving time while it was dirt cheap, kept it in the freezer, and pulled it out for Christmas Day.

I encourage you to look a bit beyond the horizon of feeling overwhelmed by your own day-to-day with littles, if you can (and I totally relate, having lived through the exact same situation — barely keeping it together in ordinary circumstances, feeling the financial pressure).

Try to imagine how things will be in just a few years. Having a house full of teenagers with only a few littles is very different from what you have now. The awareness of the older children becomes heightened. They go from simply accepting family life as it is, to a gradual comparison of how others react to the family’s way of doing things and, hopefully, to an appreciation of what our family offers to others.

Here is a great benefit of hospitality in the home. We connect ourselves to others and our children thrive, because they see that we aren’t closing ourselves off but have open arms, giving our best. Hospitality is vital and fundamental to the development of our children’s personalities.

Most children are hard-wired to love how their family does things and to form good memories of “the things we always do.” Events that stress us adults out — you know, the ones where you are acutely aware of the shortage of wine glasses and the relatives who disapprove of homeschooling and the lamp that got broken just before they arrived — are remembered by the children with a lot of warmth.

What they care about is that their cousins were there and that they got attention from the aunts and uncles — and hopefully what the guests received is the gift of being in your home.

This can be decisive for them in later years, especially today when young people have so few role models for how to live family life and how to make a home. When you host, you set the tone, and that’s important.

You are embarking on that second decade that I talk about… and you are tired… but if you drop the ball now, it may be hard to recover. Something like a holiday party can seem dispensable, but is it? Later, will you lament the weakening of bonds in the family, who see each other in a festive way so seldom? Or will you turn it all over to someone else and regret the lack of refinement or attention to what you really value?

This developmental moment can be productive for you — it can be a time when you and your husband ask the utterly practical question, “What would make things more conducive to hosting?” It might be that you need to make a few changes in decor, furnishings, or upkeep; and when you do, you find that you look forward to entertaining more — in other words, it’s that things have gotten run down or are inadequate that makes you reluctant, not that you actually want to get out of the gathering.

Often we need these deadlines and pressures to make us take things to a new level… and that new level is for the sake of the children who, very shortly, will be aware enough to either take pride in how we do things, being open to welcoming others into the home, or lapse into a general sense of our home not being a place where outsiders can be comfortable.

So — a little gentle warning: Some families never recover, right at this stage that’s so crucial to the children. Better to go thrifting, repair and clean a few things, make what you need, and assume that people want to be in your company, not judge your situation.

Sometimes, though, I hear you — we really just need some time off so that we can regroup. Again, you and your husband pray about it and then make a decision with peace and confidence! All will be well.

In short, we strive for balance but can’t always achieve it. That’s okay — we can make mistakes. What matters is that we follow the Lord where He wants us to go.

How have you managed this sort of thing at your house?

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Advent: The wisdom of childlikeness

My little Advent series so far:

Gird Your Loins for Advent

What is Advent really about?

How often does it happen that the prophecy “… and a little child shall lead them” (Isaiah 11:6) proves true?

I’d say any time that a baby arrives. If there is any openness at all to the grace of our nature as parents, we want what is best for our children. The burden of teaching them lies heavy on our hearts.

The Child of Bethlehem leads us. Interestingly, He has taken care, from the beginning of the universe, to order things this way: that our children will lead us, by our love for them, to delve deeper into the hows and whys of our vocation to raise them up as they should go.

There is one piercing fact of life: That God entered Time to dwell among us. What if there was a simple (not easy, necessarily, but simple) way to teach our children (and learn, ourselves, in the process) this fact with all its implications?

Chesterton, who loved Christmas above all, says, “Any agnostic or atheist whose childhood has known a real Christmas has ever afterwards, whether he likes it or not, an association in his mind between two ideas that most of mankind must regard as remote from each other; the idea of a baby and the idea of an unknown strength that sustains the stars.”

John Saward, who wrote thorough theology of Christmas, said this:

“The human birth of the Son of God is at all times alive in the Church’s memory, but at certain times it becomes the chief object of her meditation — every year for a season, and at the beginning of a new millennium for twelve months of jubilee.”

(I was thinking the other day about this — who is that guy —  and who would like to be that guy — who keeps these things in mind. It’s all very well to say “we do such-and-such ‘at the beginning of a new millennium’ in that airy way — but it’s only happened twice now and I have a hard time remembering the things I have to do every day — “oh, right, make dinner” — let alone every 1000 years. If ever there was proof of the permanence of an institution, this is it, am I right!)

He goes on:

“If the Child born of the Virgin is the Father’s Word, through whom all things were made, then the birth of that Child — the Christmas mystery — must indeed have ‘cosmic value,’ a truth large enough for an eternity of contemplation… “

We — and our children! — have to get ready for this momentous event, and our worship has to be interior as well as exterior. (The encyclical that beautifully explains these two inseparable aspects of worship is Mediator Dei — why not read it for your prayer sometime?)

Advent is a time of fostering this necessary interiority by means of , in the most delightful way possible, by means of the senses. The delight isn’t that of exuberant joy, but its quiet wonder is just as essential to our nature. If we don’t express it and experience it at least once a year, we are missing out on what it means to be a human being.

Some want to say that Advent is not a penitential time. The argument goes that it’s preparation and it’s not Lent. That part is true. However, there are different kinds of fasting! This season of Advent wisely expands on the natural excitement of the child who, looking forward to a wonderful occasion, can’t stop to dwell on treats or distractions. When his whole being vibrates with wholehearted anticipation for the desired object, “giving things up” becomes a joy.

We all know that suffering is part of life and our children must gradually learn the right way to suffer. Two times I encountered the wrong approach recently: First, at the doctor’s office, where a dreadful kids’ show, by means of an ugly ditty, was teaching a message about suffering with sad feelings: Soon they will be over. Second, on a poster in my church’s basement, where the children go for religious education. About prayer it said that we can pray that God will remove our sadness.

So this is what we are reduced to! Wait and it will be over. God is a magician who will take bad feelings away.

These are lies, you know.

Instead, Advent teaches us with infinite delicacy and exactly the right emphasis for a child (actual or perhaps that poor one in each of us) that we offer to God our discomforts — out of love for Him.

I really recommend, along with the patience it takes to open each door of the calendar in turn and light each candle as the weeks go by, the custom of using straw to make the manger in the empty creche comfortable for Baby Jesus. You can put straw (aka dried grass) in a basket by the creche. Each straw represents an act of charity that the child does for someone else — something hidden that perhaps he only speaks of to you, his de facto spiritual director. Those sweet conversations you have with him at bedtime or walking along, where you suggest little acts of helpfulness (“You could help your sister with her shoes”) or self denial (“You could do your morning chores without complaining”) will give him the right idea. No need to overdo it. Then he runs to place a straw there… gently learning to offer himself as part of the sacrifice.

I think children feel a lot of compassion for the poor Child who is laid in the cold manger, and that is how they learn to suffer willingly in Advent. Even this Baby suffered, right from the beginning, they soon understand. How could we tell our children this? No, they must just experience it, with great trust and affection in the bosom of the home. We learn too.

Another wrong-headed idea is that somehow, by having our church and homes a bit stark, with few decorations, and by keeping the Christ Child out of the creche until Christmas, we are “making believe” or denying that He was born. This view insists that we should be in a state of perpetual partying therefore. I call this the “oh well” approach to Christmas — “Oh well, this is how the secular world does it, with Christmas carols and a blaze of decorations the day after Thanksgiving and parties. Might as well go along.”

Is that it? Should we capitulate to the secular (and frankly, commercial-driven) spirit of the age? Ultimately, will it help our children?

This view completely destroys not only Advent but also the Christmas season, which lasts until the Baptism of Christ. Way to take out two, not one, liturgical seasons!

I love singing different songs according to the season.* I love the steady crescendo of Christmas decorating and crafting. (Certainly I am not able to produce a completely decorated house and handmade gifts suddenly, on Christmas Eve.) I love getting together with family and friends. All these things are good.

Saward says, “In the liturgy of His Church, the eternal Word incarnate works wonders with the calendar.”

Pius XII (in that encyclical) says, “the liturgical year, devotedly fostered and accompanied by the Church, is not a cold and lifeless representation of the events of the past, or a simple and bare record of a former age. It is rather Christ Himself who is ever living in His Church.”

Our children have to learn according to their nature as human beings that Jesus was born, and who He is.

If we follow the liturgy, we see that (in the antiphons and prayers and hymns, so many of which we have to dig out for ourselves, alas) indeed the Church lets us experience Him in a particular and unique way during Advent. We (and our children, year after year) live through the darkness of the People of God. This is reflected in the darkness of the gathering winter. We live through the hidden gestation of Jesus — in the darkness of Mary’s womb. We live through the longing of the Church for His second coming.

Just as a baby takes time to develop in the womb, just as Jesus developed in Mary’s womb, so it takes time for us to experience all these truths, some of which are hidden, just as He was hidden. We need each year, every year, to live through it again. It’s not make believe, any more than we “make believe” in Lent that Jesus hasn’t died on the cross. We are human — this is how we learn.

Here [in the liturgy, continues Pius XII] He continues that journey of immense mercy which He lovingly began in His mortal life, going about doing good, with the design of bringing men to know His mysteries and in a way live by them. These mysteries are ever present and active not in a vague and uncertain way as some modern writers hold, but in the way that Catholic doctrine teaches us. According to the Doctors of the Church, they are shining examples of Christian perfection, as well as sources of divine grace, due to the merit and prayers of Christ; they still influence us because each mystery brings its own special grace for our salvation. Moreover, our holy Mother the Church, while proposing for our contemplation the mysteries of our Redeemer, asks in her prayers for those gifts which would give her children the greatest possible share in the spirit of these mysteries through the merits of Christ. By means of His inspiration and help and through the cooperation of our wills we can receive from Him living vitality as branches do from the tree and members from the head; thus slowly and laboriously we can transform ourselves “unto the measure of the age of the fullness of Christ.”

It’s truly a miracle of grace that the Church, in her liturgy, keeps all the truths present to us at all times, simply drawing out emphases when we need them. In addition, she takes into account the cosmos — the external world with its seasons and the movements of the stars, all of which affect us as well. Can we trust this accountability of hers? Can we just live it with her? I hope so, because there is no other way.

We will always be getting it wrong when left on our own.

____________

*Everyone loves Christmas carols (although I think many of the beautiful, moving, and theologically intricate ones have slipped away). Not all are alike — some are fitting to the end of Advent, and some really need to be kept until Christmas Day and beyond. But the real question: Who now remembers all the lovely Advent hymns? (A good hymnal will yield treasures. This post directed you to our suggestions.)

I put to you that if we did things in the right order, our celebration of Christmas would be more joyful, not less, and we would understand more about our faith. And we would enjoy singing the Christmas carols more.

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