On the sixth day of Christmas...

Greetings!  Happy sixth day of Christmas to you all!

 

(Here, I brought you "six geese a'laying", aren't they cute?)

I very much like that song, "The Twelve Days of Christmas", but I especially like the hidden messages it carries in its lyrics about our Catholic Faith.   Do you know the message I'm referring to?

 

 For the benefit of this post, I'll just assume that you don't ;)  

I first learned the story of this old carol many years ago in one of my English workbooks, maybe in 5th Grade?  The story goes like this: 

During the time of the Protestant Revolt in England under Queen Elizabeth I when Catholics were forced to practice there religion in secret, the hunted Jesuit priests who bravely remained would teach the little children to sing this seemingly nonsense song as a way of instructing them in their Catechism.  You see, each phrase of the song acted as a mnemonic for a particular Truth of the Faith, one for each of the twelve days of the Christmas Season, lasting from December 26th to the Feast of Epiphany on January 6th.

 

 (Faithful Irish Catholics attending a "house Mass" despite persecution at the cost of their lives.)

The "secret messages" contained in the song look something like this:

"My True Love sent to me" = God the Father, Who sent His Son Jesus into the world to die for our sins.

"A partridge in a pear tree" = Jesus Christ is the "partridge" and the "tree" is the Cross on which He was crucified.

"Two turtle doves" = The Old and New Testaments of the Bible.

"Three French hens" = The virtues of faith, hope and charity or the gifts of the Three Wisemen to the Christ Child.

"Four calling birds" = Represents the four gospels, "calling" all people to Christ.

"Five golden rings" = The Pentateuch, or first five books of the Bible.

"Six geese a-laying" = God created the world in six days.

"Seven swans a-swimming" = The seven sacraments or seven Gifts of the Holy Ghost.

"Eight maids a-milking" = The eight beatitudes revealed to us by Jesus.

"Nine ladies dancing" = Referring to the nine choirs of angels: Angels, Archangels, Thrones, Powers, Principalities, Dominions, Virtues, Seraphim, and Cherubim.

"Ten lords a-leaping" = God's Ten Commandments given to us through Moses.

"Eleven pipers piping" = The number of apostles who remained faithful to Our Lord.

And my favorite!

"Twelve drummers drumming" = There are twelve points of doctrine contained in the Apostles' Creed, which is what this final line refers to.  

Isn't this cool!?!  So next time you hear this song playing, you can think about all of the meaning behind some of those words we sing.  It is far more than a nonsense song for children!

Can you believe that it's already the end of 2017?  I certainly can't believe it.  Isn't it strange how time passes us by the way it does, sometimes feeling fast and breathless, sometimes slow and lingering on endlessly?  It's fascinating and weird and perhaps a bit unsettling at times, but that's what I think makes it so valuable!

This has been an amazing year!  I think after four years of blogging here I have finally felt comfortable, like I can just have fun and write from my heart without holding back or being self-conscious. 

 And you know what?  I have all of you to thank for that.  No, I'm serious!  Knowing that there's even one person reading my insignificant little scribblings I create here is a great feeling, but I know that there's more than just one person tuning in here to every post, and that's kind of amazing to me!  Know that I appreciate your reading and commenting, your encouragement always makes me smile, dear. So thank you, and I hope you are given every blessing in the coming year ahead!

Here's to 2018!

Always,

~Emma

"Traditionnnnn! Tra-di-tion!"

First and foremost, to whomever got the reference, mozel tov! ;)

This post is kind of a hodge-podge of a bunch of different things my family and I do during the season of Advent leading up to Christmas.  

It's also that special time of year when Emma isn't quite sure if she sure should be baking lot's of yummy things, crocheting all of the Christmas gifts she hasn't started finished yet, or getting her room straightened out for Christmas guests to stay in. Soo, yeah...

Since Advent started a bit later this year (Dec. 3), it feels like we're even closer to Christmas than usual at this point in the month. *Eek! Just over two weeks?!?*  Like, Christmas is literally 15 days away.  How??

But if I'm going to tell you about traditions, I'm already getting ahead of myself!  (Does that surprise anyone?)  Let's go back and discuss November, shall we?

Being the month dedicated to the Holy Souls in Purgatory and also the month in which All Saints Day (Nov.1) falls, my mum has almost every year decorated the door in our dining room with pretty much every saint holy card we have a copy of.

Of course, it isn't the work of a day and some years takes well into the month to fill, but it's always
fun adding new and interesting saints to the collection every year.

(Bonus points! Can anyone name the saints in this picture?)

Our altar, too, is decorated with saints all through November.

 (Christmas wreath in pre-stages: Hemlock, White Pine, Mountain Laurel, and Some Kind Of Brown Weed)

 Courtesy of NaNoWriMo, November was a bit of a blur.  A really fun, super exhilarating, inspirational blur, but a blur all the same.  I wouldn't hesitate to do it again next year, in fact I plan to providing life doesn't get in the way, but now I have a better understanding of how much more preparation I need to have in advance.

So anyway!  For me, the first official commencement to this most joyous of seasons is a little something known in my family as Wreath Making.  (Yes, the caps are entirely necessary ;) )

Wreath Making occurs every year, rain or shine, on the Saturday after Thanksgiving.  My whole family-aunts, uncles, cousins, and a special friend or two-all gather at my grandparents house to make wreathes with the fresh greens we pick from around the property.

(One of the wreaths I made this year for my best friend and his family)

This is one of my absolute favorite things to do every year!  Drinking warm apple cider, tramping around outside in the cold, trimming tree branches and getting thoroughly covered in more pine pitch than you might think humanly possible.  It's the best!

Plus, that is also the day when it becomes officially acceptable to blast Christmas music pretty much whenever you want, beginning with while you make your wreath.  And no one even minds if you sing along loudly with Bing and Frank! Win win, am I right?

(My chickens got their very own swag this year....

 ...much to Amber and Elsbeth's approval) 

 Now onto December!

 We set our tree up rather early this year, the first Sunday on Advent, I'm not quite sure why.  Usually we wait until more like the second week, but I think the reason partly has to do with the fact that my sister, brother-in-law, and niece are going to be able to come down and celebrate Christmas with us this year!

This is going to be little Anastasia's first Christmas, so maybe that has something to do with it.  For me it kind of feels even more exciting than usual, almost like I'm seeing firsthand what it's like to experience all the wonder for the very first time.

 (Our December altar.  No more saints, just the Infant of Prague and our Advent Wreath)

(St Nicholas found way into our Advent Wreath on his feastday, Dec. 6)

 

(I made these just the other day, Beehive Buns for St Ambrose, Dec. 7)

Why a beehive?  There is a legend that when Saint Ambrose, whose name in Latin means "sweet as honey", was a baby a swarm or bees came one day and clustered about his lips without stinging him.  By this sign his mother understand that he was destined to be a great writer and orator one day and he is still revered as one of the greatest theologians of the 4th century.  You can read more about St. Ambrose here  and get the recipe for Beehive Buns over here.

Thus concludes this lengthy post!  I hope you enjoyed :)  

And for those of you who didn't understand this post's opening line, here is the solution for you.

Happy Advent, everyone!  Do you have any pre-Christmas traditions?

Talk soon, my dears!

Always,

~Emma