Last December St. Nicholas gave one of our daughters an illustrated edition of The Christmas Carol and the Charles Dickens Tribute Lego Set (which was a gift with purchase awhile back). I asked this Dicken's lover of ours if she would write a review to share with you all!  A Christmas Carol Book Review by Clare Gordon Christmas is a time of magic! It's the day the Light of the World filled the void darkness we humans had thrown ourselves into through sin. Our Lord shines through the night, not just spreading light, but dispelling darkness all at once; taking away, as ..read more

Ever since our oldest children were very little, we have been implementing an old monastic custom in our home by providing special treats, representing each of the "O Antiphons" on the days leading up to Christmas. The O Antiphon prayers begin on December 17th and end on the 23rd, which is the last Vespers of Advent, since the evening prayer on the 24th is the Vigil of Christmas. The Benedictine monks arranged these antiphons with a definite purpose. If one starts with the last title and takes the first letter of each one - Emmanuel, Rex, Oriens, Clavis, Radix, Adonai, Sapientia - the Latin ..read more

Rorate, caeli, desuper, et nubes pluant justum,  aperiatur terra, et germinet Salvatorem. Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above,  and let the clouds rain the just: let the earth be opened  and bud forth a Saviour. - first words of the Introit from Isaiah 45:8 "The Rorate Caeli Mass is a traditional Advent devotion wherein the Mass of the Blessed Virgin Mary for Advent is offered just before dawn... ...The Rorate Mass is lit only by candlelight. Because it is a votive Mass in Mary’s honor, white vestments are worn instead of Advent violet. In the dimly lit setting, prie ..read more

We are wrapping up our first semester of this school year! At the beginning of the year I promised that I would share our curriculum this year and I'm finally getting a chance to finish up this post... This year we have a 12th grader, 9th grader, 7th grader, 5th grader, Kindergartner and Pre-schooler!  Pictured above:  Rose Floral Clipboard, Homemade Checklists, outdated Teacher Lesson Planner (I didn't use it much last year so I'm re-dating some of the weeks to use this year instead), and a beautiful 2023 Catholic Planner  (I was given the planner as a r ..read more

I mentioned this sweet new picture book in this year's Advent Book Basket post . Our little ones will discover it when they unwrap it on December 9th, the feast of St. Juan Diego, days before this year's feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe on December 12th. In the meantime I wanted to share our review and few more pictures with you all!  Our Lady of Guadalupe and Her Dear Juanito is a retold version of the Blessed Virgin Mary’s appearance in Mexico, 1531 A.D. The colorful illustrations will captivate the mind of the young reader as well as the rendition of the tender dialogue between ..read more

I've shared many times over the years how much we love Regina Martyrum Productions! You can click back to this post for a few of our favorites. I also will be playing some of their Old Testament stories (this short story bundle and this short story bundle) for our children to go along with our Jesse Tree this Advent.  They are having another amazing Cyber Monday Sale! 60% to 70% OFF EVERYTHING for 24 HOURS on 11/28/2022 ONLY Option 1: Buy individual stories marked 60% OFF. Every story is marked down from $19.95 to only $8 per story! Option 2: Buy the whol ..read more

Is it really Advent already? How is that even possible?!? This month (year!) has flown by... We have had our college kids home all week which has been wonderful! I sure love it when everyone is home and I am already looking forward to having them back for Christmas break in a few weeks. They drove home last weekend and had been planning to drive back to school this weekend, but another couple snow storms are hitting and we decided to book them one-way flights back to school instead of having them risk the long drive over multiple mountain passes... Hopefully they will have safe flights ..read more

It's time for our annual list of Christmas Gift Ideas & Stocking Stuffers including another Sleighful of Giveaways! This post always takes so much longer than I think it will, but I really love being able to bless so many families (29 this year!) with the gifts donated by all the generous sponsors and help with shopping ideas at the same time. You'll also find many coupon codes listed below to help with your Christmas shopping! Grab a cup of tea or coffee when you have a few minutes and enjoy browsing our online gift guide and the incredible websites of all the various sponsor ..read more

We didn't get the opportunity to have my brother-in-law over for his birthday last month, but I wanted to finally share the cake we made him last year along with the recipe for the topping. I still have some Skrewball in the pantry and might have to make it again for Thanksgiving.  It was really good and the perfect way to transform a store-bought cheesecake on a busy day!  Praline Pecan Cheesecake Ingredients: Cheesecake  2 tablespoons butter 2/3 cup packed brown sugar 1/3 cup maple syrup 1 tablespoon whipping cream 1/4 teaspoon salt 2 tablespoons Skrewball Peanut Butter ..read more

"The giver of every good and perfect gift has called upon us to mimic God's giving, by grace, through faith, and this is not of ourselves." - St. Nicholas of Myra The feast of St. Nicholas is coming up so fast! Now that All Saints Day and Martinmas are behind us it's time for me to take a little break from my Thanksgiving preparations to plan for Advent and the feast of St. Nicholas which quickly follow. I sure love sharing my little plans here on the blog with all of you!  On December 6th our children always wake up to find that the letters they wrote to the Holy Chil ..read more