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SeaStar
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| Posted: Nov 01 2006 at 6:22pm | IP Logged
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My daily dose of reality has made me very sad today. All Saints Day- a beautiful feast day and, with all the saints, a great opportunity to celebrate a great group of people. I have been talking to the kids a lot about this day; we went to a big picnic and parade of saints over the weekend. We looked at saints cards and talked about our favorite saints, etc.
But reality? The day after Halloween... kids were up late last night and still got up at 5 am this morning (thank you, day light savings time). Today they were tired, grumpy, wanting candy; mass was a disaster with two fidgety and tired kids. The whole day of feasting turned into one of those "help me get through today, Lord" days.
And it just strikes me that the whole scenario is so sad! Coming on the heels of Halloween and right after the time change, this feast day seems to have an uphill battle. The joy of it was lost for us in the fallout from the day before.
I have always enjoyed Halloween- the costumes, the happiness of the kids, the candy... but now I feel like I will have to rethink it all for next year. My kids are still young (2 and 4), so maybe it will all get easier as they age. But in my heart I want the joy of the saints to outshine Halloween.
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Michaela
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| Posted: Nov 01 2006 at 7:03pm | IP Logged
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I hear yah. 
I had planned to attend the 8:30 am Mass, but my kids got up before me & had a little candy party before breakfast.
There was no way I was going to taking them this morning.
We will go to the 7 p.m. Mass instead.
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Michaela
Momma to Nicholas 16, Nathan 13, Olivia 13, Teresa 6, & Anthony 3
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mumofsix
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| Posted: Nov 02 2006 at 7:42am | IP Logged
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SeaStar - just a thought - why not combine Halloween and All Saints, rather than thinking of them as two separate feasts? After all, Halloween is simply "All Hallows Eve" which translates literally as the vigil of All Saints. You could attend the vigil Mass for the feast, then come home and do the traditional Halloween activities (with a Christian slant, obviously) and then have as much of a lie in as you and the children need the next day, having largely "done" the feast. Then you could just get to what you feel like on the 1st.
Jane.
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saintanneshs
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| Posted: Nov 02 2006 at 8:51am | IP Logged
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Good suggestion, Jane. 
For me, I've found that emphasizing All Saints Day throughout the whole month of October has been helpful in eliminating that feeling, on Nov. 1, of "Where did the HOLY Day go?" If I give as much attention to saint crafts, read-alouds, copywork, etc. as I do for pumpkins/fall/harvest/Halloween, I feel much more like we've "prepared well" for the feast day and that, combined with mass and our All Saints party on the feast day, really helps us make a connection with the Holy Day. This is something new for us this year...I spent a lot of time in early October finding great picture books about the saints and making plans to incorporate saint-related activities in our calendar. I finally bought a couple of nice baskets from the craft store and one of them has been designated as our "saint books" basket. The 6 and 5yo often took it with them to their quiet time areas in the afternoons (while the little ones napped) and read, read, read. Yea! 
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marihalojen
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| Posted: Nov 02 2006 at 8:57am | IP Logged
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Kristine, that is what really attracted me to Alice's Spoon Saints in October. It keeps the mind focused on the beautiful feast day that is coming, rather like an Advent Calendar or paper chain before Christmas.
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SeaStar
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| Posted: Nov 02 2006 at 7:20pm | IP Logged
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What great ideas- thanks, everyone! I can see that I have to approach the saints differently next fall to keep the emphasis from being solely on Halloween. I have to build up a saints book basket, too.
I LOVE the idea of going to a vigil mass and then out trick or treating. My church doesn't have a vigil the night before for this feast day, but I will check around next year to see if another one does. The mass options for us this year were 7 am, 12 noon and 6pm. Getting out to 7 am mass with little ones is hard- we'd have to leave home by 6:30-6:45, and even though we were up way early, getting up and dressed and out the door in a church frame of mind is not the easiest thing at that hour. 6 pm- the kids were in bed by 6:15. So we went to the noon mass, and it turned out to be a full high mass- a long time to sit with tired little ones.
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Cici
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| Posted: Nov 02 2006 at 9:44pm | IP Logged
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FWIW, I called around to get local mass times for All Saints Day. I was told there was no "vigil" because it wasn't a Holy Day - just a feast day. I'm probably paraphrasing, but I just thought I'd throw that out.
Seastar, my kids are the same ages as yours - although apparently better sleepers - I'd probably go to the evening mass, put them down a tad later for nap and let them sleep a bit longer than I normally would. It's still turmoil in the morning...Me? When things start deteriorating like that around here we all get our shoes on and go outside. Yesterday was cold, but a half hour of fall wind whipping at our noses, a few raked leaves and we are much refreshed from the outdoor air. Including mommy. 
Still, I fell your pain...
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Karen E.
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| Posted: Nov 03 2006 at 8:52am | IP Logged
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mumofsix wrote:
| SeaStar - just a thought - why not combine Halloween and All Saints, rather than thinking of them as two separate feasts? After all, Halloween is simply "All Hallows Eve" which translates literally as the vigil of All Saints. You could attend the vigil Mass for the feast, then come home and do the traditional Halloween activities |
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This is what we do, and what I like about it is that we keep the focus on Mass -- we always make the vigil Mass a priority on Halloween night. But, we also do costumes and trick-or-treating after Mass (we can even trick-or-treat at our local convent.)
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Karen E.
mom to three on earth, and several souls in God's care
Visit my blog, with its shockingly clever title, "Karen Edmisten."
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Topic: Halloween Fallout
