Putting Jesus in the Creche - A Family Tradition

So, your creche has been awaiting the arrival of you little ceramic Jesus for 4 Sundays of advent, and it's almost time for Him to claim His place in the manger!

Violet's Godmother (who grew up in the cutest Catholic family ever) has a great tradition for kids to add Baby Jesus to the manger scene! Every year when they returned from the vigil mass on Christmas Eve, they would have a Baby Jesus Hunt! It's just like and Easter egg hunt, only you're looking for Baby Jesus. Doesn't that sound like a great Christmas tradition?! :-)

Here's what you do:
Hide all the Baby Jesus' from your creche sets before you leave for Christmas mass. When you return from mass, have your kids search until they retrieve every Baby Jesus for all of your nativity sets. Make sure that each child has at least one. (If you're at all obsessed with nativity sets like me, that should be no problem).

Then you sing a Christmas song (Such as Away in a Manger) while your family processes from creche to creche adding Jesus to the manger.

Let the smallest child have the Baby Jesus from your main nativity set, and after adding Him, have a blessing of the creche. You can print a copy of a Creche Blessing Here. Here's a different creche blessing where you bless each piece separately. I love my new creche for this year! See how all the pieces have a different bible verse on them? 

This set is called the Scripture Nativity Set and I remember seeing it at Wal-Mart last Christmas, but I couldn't afford it. Luckily for me I found the same set (new in the box) at a yard sale last Summer! I was soooo excited! This year we also have a large Baby Jesus with a wooden manger from Catholic Child Catalog.

 

I am in love with this new Christmas decoration- it's my favorite of all! We have His empty manger patiently awaiting Christ front and center in front of the (fake) fireplace.

I really look forward to starting this tradition with my family this year, and I just know my children will love it! Does your family have a tradition for adding Jesus to the nativity set? We'd all love to hear about it! :-)
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Religious Christmas Dinner Ideas

Looking for a way to Keep Christ in Christmas as you serve your roast beast? Well, here are a few cute ideas I have found on the internet.

Cleverly share a Reading of the Christmas Story with your

dinner guests- check this out on Inspiring Ideas. 

Jeanne from Inspiring Ideas also prompts us to remember our true

guest of honor at our dinner table this Christmas.

Cut Out and Keep has directions on how to make

Baby Jesus Buns as your dinner rolls.

For your centerpiece, use your advent wreath, but add a white 

Christ Candle to the middle. You can make this as easy or as hard 

as you'd like, from a plain white candle to a very decorated one.

Keep using your Christ Candle through the entire Christmas season.

I absolutely love these Nativity Candles from My Little Flower!

I'm hoping to decorate our Christ Candle using this technique!

I almost forgot! Be sure to Make Jesus a Birthday Cake
for your dessert! This one is from Jeanne at Inspired Ideas.
Click here to see a round up of Happy Birthday Jesus
cakes that I put together last year.

I'm hoping to use all these ideas at our Christmas dinner table, but we'll see what I have time for! ;-) We're definitely having at least a plain white Christ candle, and I'm really going to try to include the reading of the Christmas story! Also, the birthday cake is s must for us. ;-)

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Food Ideas for O Antiphons

I know we're already one day into the O Antiphons now, (they start December 17), but Catholic Cuisine has an AMAZING post about different foods to make for each of the O Antiphons, starting with these little books for "Wisdom".

Jessica has also provided a free printable with each O Antiphon to attach to gold coins. So simple and elegant! Click over to check it out.
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O Antiphons Printable Prayer Companion

Hurry over to O Night Divine to get an amazing prayer companion that you can print for free! The O Antiphons start on December 17- check your calendars, that's today! Go print it now- you still have time!

Here's an example of one of the pages.

They all include beautiful pictures!

My favorite thing about this download? It includes the lyrics to "O Come O Come Emmanuel" on each appropriate day. Yay for making things easy! :-)
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Christmas Angel Crafts

Halo! Today I bring you good tidings of great joy- Choirs of heavenly angel crafts! Do not be afraid to attempt them yourself. :-)

I love this beautiful Angel Ornament from Crafts By Amanda.

Craft Angels from Doilies with Sycamore Stirrings.

Make Pine Cone Angels with Nini Makes.

Bake some Angel Cookies with Cookies and Cups.

Here's an Angel Ornament Craft from Kaboose.

Make this Angel Ornament out of ribbon! Also from Kaboose.

Find these adorable Clay Angel Plates on That Artist Woman.

Pink Paper Peppermints shares the printable template

for this Angel Candy Cane Holder.

Find this Printable Angel Tree Topper on Family Fun.

You can also craft this Angel Garland with Family Fun.

You could also make the Cardboard Tube Angel from

my printable nativity set. Very easy to do!

 Don't miss my Angel Round-up from last Christmas. You can see all my angel posts by clicking here. 

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O Atiphons Ideas

No matter what you may have already missed the boat on this Advent season, the O Antiphons don't start until December 17, so you still have time! If you're wondering "What are the O Antiphons?", click here and read all about them! Basically every day from December 17-24 you highlight the Messiah with a different name, each of them starting with "O" (Ex: O Emmanuel). Here are some ideas for celebrating these days:

Over at Family Centered Living, you can find these beautiful

O Antiphon Ornaments that you can print for free! :-)

(She has the matching Jesse Tree ornaments, too.)

You can find coloring pages on O Night Divine for each of the O Antiphons. Your kids can color one each day! Find them here: O Sapientia, O Adonia, O Radix Jesse, O Clavis David, O Oriens, O Rex Gentium, O Emmanuel.

Also on O Night Divine, find directions on making these 

O Antiphons Ornaments from bottle caps.

Find a different food to coordinate with each O Antiphon

over at Waltzing Matilda, such as this Texas Sunrise for

"O Dawn of the East, brightness of light eternal, and sun of justice..."

Seriously don't miss my O Antiphons round up from last year! There are some other really great ideas in that other post- I just didn't want to bore you with re-runs. :-)
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Easy Nativity Cookies

We all know that I'm a crafter- not a baker. But being a baker seems to be a mommy-requirement at Christmas time. My awesome friend Liz (from Frugally Blonde) hosted a cookie exchange for my Catholic mother's group this year that I was not going to miss out on! I got an adorable set of nativity cookie cutters this year, so I thought we'd give 'em a try!

I didn't want to be stressed out about decorating enough cookies for an exchange, so I was determined to come up with something simple to do. Rather than utilizing all the icing tips that came in my cookie cutter set, I decided we would just sprinkle the cookies with colored sugar. This was a perfect job for little fingers! We sprinkled the sugar on before baking the cookies.

In my opinion, the price they charge for the colored sugar they sell in little spice jars is bordering on highway robbery, so we make our own colored sugar. If you're new to this idea, check out my directions for diy colored sugar. I tried to choose colors symbolic to each nativity piece as best as I could. The nativity colors I ended up using were blue for Mary, green for Joseph, yellow for Baby Jesus & the star, white for the angel & the sheep, purple for the kings, red for the camel, and brown for the shepherd & the donkey. (No need to make brown sugar- I'm sure you already have some!)

 

I made one set for everyone exchanging cookies, set them on paper plates. Then wrapped them up in plastic wrap.

The set I got came with these pieces:

There was no shepherd in the set, and it didn't have an angel either! I already had an angel cookie cutter that I threw into the mix, and I also had a star that I felt was a little more "star of Bethlehem" than the one that the set came with.

No shepherd cookie cutter? No problem! For my shepherd, I used the king cookie cutter. I just used my finger to round out his head and get rid of the crown. I also flipped him over before I baked him so that he would face the opposite direction of the kings. I flipped some of my sheep, too. When the shepherds were almost done baking I carefully pressed a candy cane "staff" onto the cookies and put them back in the oven for just a minute. Watch them carefully- you only want the candy cane to melt a little bit and it doesn't take long!

I thought the cookies turned out really cute, and my kids loved getting to help! It's so great to be answering questions about the wise men while cutting Christmas cookies with my kids. I was going to be making cookies anyway, so this was a great opportunity to make another Christmas activity focus on the true meaning of Christmas.

 

I can't wait to find some other uses for our nativity cookie cutters! Maybe next year I'll stop being so lazy and actually crack out some icing for decorating them... or maybe not. ;-) 

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Religious Candy Cane Craft

Catholic ABC's Week: 15
Letter of the week: J
Theme: Jesus
Saint of the Week: St. Joseph
Craft: J is for Jesus Candy Cane Craft

This week at my preschool co-op, we're learning about the letter "j". It was pretty easy to pick what "j" is for... Jesus! Last year I saw this craft over on Muffin Tin Mom and I've just been waiting for a chance to make it! Isn't it the cutest? I wish I had some pictures of my preschool kids making this one, but we didn't get to go yesterday due to many factors, including the fact that one of our cars is currently broken down :-P

Materials Needed to Complete This Craft:

• White paper
• Red Paint
• Shredded Paper
• Glue
• Felt (or colored paper)
• Manila File Folder

For little kids, you'll need to do the cutting ahead of time. Cut out the candy cane shape from white paper or card stock, and ovals from felt for Baby Jesus' blanket. Cut circles from manila file folders for Baby Jesus' head and draw on a little face.

Start by having the kids paint red stripes onto their white candy canes (try to make sure the paper is turned like a "J"). It's more important that they do it themselves than it is for the stripes to be perfect. (I made the one above. A toddler's candy cane will not look like that- when I have a picture of the one my 4 year old made I will post it). Have them put glue at the bottom of the candy cane and attach the shredded paper. Glue Baby Jesus together and add him to the "hay".

 

That's it!

Grab Bag Ideas for the Letter Jj: (be sure to check out the Classroom Script for directions on using the grab bag.) Jingle Bell, Jacks, Jello, Jack O Lantern, Jar, Joker, Juicebox, Jerky, Jet, Jump Rope, Jaguar, Jelly, Jellyfish, Jellybean, Jug, Juicer.

For More Resources, check out the Catholic Toolbox lesson plans for the Letter Jj. (Her Jj lesson is also on Jesus!)

Catholic ABC's runs here at Catholic Icing every Wednesday with the new letter of the week. You can get the details of this program by checking out the Classroom Script.

Remember that we will be taking a few weeks off from Catholic ABC's at Christmas. God bless!

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