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Donna Marie
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| Posted: Jan 06 2010 at 11:33am | IP Logged
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I have the joy of having my twins(16) and my 5yodd share the same birthday...on the 11th day of Christmas. No one really wants to see another cookie, cake or celebration...and that is just not an option here!
Considering that real Catholics know how to PARTY for alll of Christmas LOL...
We decided to throw an Epiphany party on Sunday for the girls and as a means of teaching others about Catholic tradition and fun!
I NEED ideas... We told everyone it would be a potluck and other than that and a GREAT need to clean my home while morning sick , I am trying to figure out how this should work.
Ideas?? Pleeeeaaasssse share!
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Donna Marie from NJ
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Finding Elegant Simplicity
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ekbell
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Catholic Culture has lots of ideas for Epiphany
Activities for the Feast of Epiphany (look at the sidebar for more links)
If you want a party craft the Making Music Praying Twice website have a paper puppet craft for Epiphany. We Three Kings activity
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Waverley
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| Posted: Jan 06 2010 at 1:22pm | IP Logged
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We have an Epiphany party each year and love it. Below are some ideas and resources.
Activities:
* At our house the Three Wise Men from our Nativity set have been slowly making their way through the house on their way to the stable. Today they arrive. It’s a big deal here! Their arrival is the centerpiece of the Epiphany celebration where they are lovingly placed by a child next to the Christ child. This is usually done after the reading from Matthew.
* Make crowns for everyone. I have found that the crowns work best if I cut them from card stock or heavy weight construction paper. Then give the kids the crown cut outs and let them decorate them. I usually give them pom pom balls, plastic jewels, sequins, wrapping paper scraps, stickers and aluminum foil (I am not yet brave enough to break out the glitter!).
* Reenact the arrival of the Three Wise Men at the stable. The kids can use their crowns. Beach towels and small blankets make wonderful capes.
* Have a house blessing. Each year, we ask for blessings for all who will enter our house. A visible reminder of our prayer and our commitment to treating all who enter as if they were Christ himself is a blessing written in chalk above the front door on the inside of the house. Consider a house blessing for your home. Have an adult write in chalk above the door: 20 + C + M + B + 09 (the numbers change each year). As the adult writes each letter another adult can recite “Christus mansionem benedicat” latin for “May Christ bless this house.”2 This ceremony can be as elaborate or simple as you wish.
* A coloring page of the Three Wise Men can be found at: www.first-school.ws/t/cp_bible/3wise_matthew2.html
* A maze where you help the Three Wise Men find Jesus can be found at: www.sermons4kids.com/wise_men_maze.htm
* For a nice lesson plan, coloring page for older kids, a word search, a cross word puzzle and games look here: www.new.catholicmom.com/2008/12/26/sunday-january-4-2009/
Food:
* Make a King Cake. For us, a King cake is simply a cake with a small figure of the infant Jesus baked inside. When the cake is cut, the person who has the piece with the baby Jesus inside gets a second piece of cake. A King cake can be as elaborate or simple as you wish. You can make a cake from scratch or a box, you can let the children decorate the cake with sprinkles or do it yourself, you can make the cake in the shape of a crown or leave it in the pan, you can use candles. You can also make the reward for getting the baby Jesus whatever you wish. Maybe the child is responsible for keeping up with the baby Jesus until the next year’s Epiphany, maybe the child is guaranteed a position as a Wise Man in the reenactment. One year (the kids favorite year), I baked cupcakes and there was a baby Jesus in every cupcake. They were all excited to get their own baby Jesus.
I hope you have a great time!!!
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Waverley
wife to Dh for 19 years, dd (16), dd (11), dd (8), ds (6), dd (4), dd (9-13-1996)
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MaryM
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I helped plan our support group party the day before yesterday. Don't know if anything we did would be a helpful idea to you or not.
We read some Epiphany stories (ideas in picture book thread) and did the blessing already described. I have a box with "gold," frankincense and myrrh that we passed around so that everyone could see and especially smell those resins. We had some games and crafts for different age ranges.
Crafts
For oldest group we made these Stars - they really turned out nice and everyone enjoyed this activity a lot. I used the directions from here but there are some others out there - different variations for something very similar. I couldn't get "kite paper" so we used vellum. Tissue paper can also be used.
The preschool/K group made construction paper crowns, decorated with those plastic jewels and sequins. They also colored these paper 3 King figures from Catholic Icing.
Page 1
Page 2
page 3
Games
-"Camel races" - really just piggy back races.
-Find baby Jesus - variation on the "shell game" I had a small plastic baby Jesus figure and three cups ("three kings"). Cover the figure with a cup and shuffle them around on the table - then a child tries to guess which cup it's under.
-"Follow the Star" - really follow the leader. The leader carried a dowel with paper star attached to top. They took turns being the "leader"
And I know you said no more cake - but the traditional King's cake or one of the ethnic variations (Rocha de Reyes, or Gallete des Rois) would be good. We also had cupcakes that the kids made into crowns with butterscotch chips (since we couldn't find Kissable as I had used in the past).
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Donna Marie
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| Posted: Jan 09 2010 at 9:43pm | IP Logged
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Thank you all so much for the wonderful ideas. I have several (3)cheesecakes baking in the oven with an almond hidden safely inside. I figure that whoever finds the almond will have a rosary prayed for their intentions.
I am so nauseated with this baby I have to rely on everyone here to get our home ready. Dh just told me to putz around wherever I can. So I will be placing a booklet about the 3 kings out on the tables with a sample of their 3 gifts....among other things.
Father is coming for dinner so he will bless our chalk then and I will have him 'baptize' the door. This man loves water, fire, and smoke...lol so it will get a thorough dunking, I am sure!
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Donna Marie from NJ
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Finding Elegant Simplicity
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MaryM
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| Posted: Jan 10 2010 at 10:24pm | IP Logged
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How was the party, Donna Marie?
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Mary M. in Denver
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Donna Marie
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| Posted: Jan 14 2010 at 5:37pm | IP Logged
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MaryM wrote:
| How was the party, Donna Marie? |
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Thanks for asking, Mary!
It went very well. We decluttered about 60% of the living room, dining room, and kitchen and piled 'em in!
I was feeling sooo green before everyone came that I couldn't get to EVERYTHING I wanted to do...including straightening up the zoo on the mantle. (i never knew there were elephants and zebras in Bethlehem, but the kids pulled out all the stops and made it more of a recreation of Noah and the Ark.) I forgot to glue St. Joseph's head back on him and it was the first thing our pastor noticed..."oh! I see Joey lost his head! i never knew setting up the manger involved contact sports....
The cheesecakes were a hit...funny thing was...only 2 people claimed they found the almond hidden inside and there were 3.... We told them that in Honor of the Feast of the 3 Kings a rosary would be prayed in their honor. My dh's family was wondering why in the world we should fuss so much and I told them that the traditions of the Catholic Church were so wonderful and fun and we were determined not to let them die.
We asked everyone to bring a covered dish and everyone was sooo generous...plenty of wine and lots and lots of food and laughter. People even did MY dishes!! woo hoo!
We had a great time talking about traditions of the liturgical year and of course food! We all had a great time. It was definitely worth the exhaustion...
Thanks everyone for the wonderful ideas!!
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Donna Marie from NJ
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Finding Elegant Simplicity
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Donna Marie
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| Posted: Jan 02 2012 at 8:17pm | IP Logged
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Bumping this up....I have to do this again!
An Epiphany birthday party!!
Funny how birthdays come around every year.
This year we are celebrating 2 18yo dd's birthdays!!!  and one 7yo dd!
We want to make things special...any new ideas? I only have 6 days to figure this all out
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Donna Marie from NJ
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Finding Elegant Simplicity
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JodieLyn
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Well DH's mom would do a tamale party (make and eat) around new year's and I just can't. But we're gonna try doing that for Epiphany and seeing how it goes. It'll be on Saturday evening instead of Sunday though.
I want to get everything ready ahead and have a pot of beans and salad and have one batch of tamales cooked before people get here. My sister knows how to make tamales, so I may invite the other family to get here a bit earlier and get to make tamales when it's a smidge less crowded.
Two families doesn't seem like much but that's 6 kids on top of my 10 and another 5 adults.. in my house that's a crowd.
I don't know about a cake but if we do one I was thinking of a Buche de Noel (lovely chocolate rolled cake).
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Kathryn
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Donna Marie wrote:
| I only have 6 days to figure this all out |
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OUCH!
  
That's all I can offer. I have a 13th birthday party to plan for the following week-end!
Good luck!!
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Kathryn in TX
(dd 16, ds 15, dd 8, dd 5)
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Kathryn
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JodieLyn wrote:
Well DH's mom would do a tamale party
I want to get everything ready ahead and have a pot of beans and salad and have one batch of tamales cooked before people get here. |
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Sorry I'm hijacking this but that's a great idea for my daughter's birthday party for the following week-end!
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Kathryn in TX
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Michaela
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Camel races, Mary. LOVE it. You are so fun!
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3ringcircus
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Lots of birthays around here! My middle guy's was today, and my elder one's on Saturday. I think I'm going to grab this epiphany idea for next year.
My DH's family is Mexican, so they will appreciate a Rosca de Reyes (sp?) cake w/ a baby Jesus inside (they usually buy it). It's so hard to plan things out since it takes so much energy just to get through Christmas & NY. I felt like if we were going to do a more elaborate party w/ extended relatives, like they all expect us to, we have to start planning on Thanksgiving! As it is, I'm scrambling to get through wrapping presents, doing cake pops for preschool, and a special supper & cake x2.
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4Real Forums : Domestic Church
Topic: Planning an Epiphany Party
