St. Lucy's Day

St. Lucy's Crown to celebrate St. Lucy's Day yesterday

 

Christ the King

Last Sunday was the Feast of Christ the King.  On this day I bake a king's cake with a golden cross inside.  Whichever of my kids gets the piece with the cross in it gets to start the Advent calendar the following week.  The look on C's face was priceless when she realized that she was the lucky one this year.  If only I had been quicker with the camera...  I guess the shot I got wasn't too bad considering I only had my phone camera nearby. 

And today is the first day of Advent.  I'm ready.  I love this time of year. 

Martinmas

For Martinmas, or the feast day of St. Martin of Tours, I made St. Martin's Croissants, a Polish tradition.  While I don't have any Polish ancestry that I know of, Ray is half Polish.  That means that my kids are 1/4 Polish.  So that is as good a reason as any to adopt a Polish tradition for our household.  Especially when it involves making and eating sugared croissants!  I couldn't get a decent picture of them, though.  In real life they were all sparkly from the coarse sugar coating.  And mmmm, yummy!

While we were enjoying the croissants and hot apple cider, M re-told the story of how St. Martin gave a beggar half his cloak so he wouldn't freeze. Next year, if I get my act together, I think it would be nice to have the kids collect some coats to give to charity on this day.

Pentecost Cake

This past Sunday was Pentecost (or Whitsunday). So the kids and I made a cake. Because you really can't have too many reasons to celebrate. I got the idea from here. I made a white cake that was pretty tasty. It turned out a little too yellow because the recipe called for the whole egg. Next time I will try a recipe that only calls for the whites. I ran out of vanilla extract so I used almond extract instead. We all agreed that it was delicious that way. The kids said it reminded them of our Christmas Almond Pastry. The strawberries were from our most recent trip to the strawberry fields. The 12 whole strawberries represent the 12 fruits of the Holy Spirit. The 7 heart-shaped sliced strawberries represent the 7 gifts of the Holy Spirit. The small candles stand for the apostles and Mary that were present when the Holy Spirit came. And the large candle in the middle is for Jesus. The kids thought it was great! Next year I will have to make sure the kids can name all the fruits and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Hopefully their answers will not be STRAWBERRIES! :)