Nativity Book #14 - The First Christmas Candy Canes

This is the fourteenth of my postings about our 40 books of Nativity. You can read about the tradition here.

Today's book is a new one to us. My mom brought it when she visited last week so that I could wrap it up and add it to the basket. It is The First Christmas Candy Canes, a legend told by Berniece Rabe. It's a sweet little legend about a shepherd girl who makes little red striped candy canes which are then involved with the birth of Christ. I've heard different stories about the Christian symbolism of the candy cane, and seen a couple different books, but never this one. This is just a nice little story and the kids enjoyed it.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Turkey Day from my dramatic little Pilgrim and Indian! I was sort of sad today not to be with lots of family, but we had a nice day anyway. The great costumes were thanks to my mom who shared her creative skills and supplies during her visit last weekend.

A few other memories:

Writing down what we are thankful for on paper leaves to decorate the dinner table. 7yo is thankful for his family, trees, the sky, the earth, friends and Looney Tunes!

Starting to set the table for dinner.

Nativity Book # 13 - The Miracle of St. Nicholas

This is the thirteenth of my postings about our 40 books of Nativity. You can read about the tradition here.

This morning we opened and read a wonderful book called The Miracle of St. Nicholas by Gloria Whelan. It is a beautiful story about the reopening of a church dedicated to St. Nicholas on Christmas in a Russian village in the late 20th century. I can only ever get about halfway through the book before I start crying. The story is so beautiful, because it is so true. Since I lived in Russia in the 1990's I saw many such examples of abandoned churches being reopened after 60 or 70 years. The empty, dirty churches were slowly refilled with icons which had been hidden in homes for years and slowly also refilled with faithful believers. My boys really like this book. This year, even the 3yo loved it. And he told me at the end, "I don't like those soldiers! They were mean." (He was speaking of revolutionary soldiers during the Civil War or a bit later in the Soviet Union.) Good book to read as we celebrate today the freedoms and gifts we have as Americans!

Nativity Book #12 - A Child's First Bible

This is the twelfth of my postings about our 40 books of Nativity. You can read about the tradition here.

The book we opened this morning is A Child's First Bible, a simple bible story book written for very young children. We read the Nativity story from this book, beginning with the Annunciation and ending with the Presentation in the Temple and the Flight to Egypt. All of those stories spanned about 10 or 12 pages. I have mixed emotions about this bible story book. The illustrations are OK, though not great. It's certainly not enough text for older children (and in fact, my 7yo didn't really even want to sit and read this with us this morning). Most stories are told in just two or three sentences (about 3 sentences for Jonah and the whale). But, it's been good at times for a very quick intro to bible stories for my boys at ages 1 and 2. And actually the 3yo really enjoyed it this morning, though he's already ready for more text and was sure I hadn't read all of the story when we were finished. Still, it was a quick way to tell the whole Nativity story as we continue to remind ourselves of the details of this story throughout the fast.

Feast of the Great Martyr Katherine! . . . and a Saints' book review

Happy Nameday to all Katherines today (or yesterday) . . . and this includes my sister! This is a funny feast because it is November 24 on some calendars and November 25 on others. We have Tsaritsa Catherine the Great to thank for that craziness, but that's a story for another day. What a wonderful story St. Katherine's life is! We read it this morning and my boys loved hearing how St. Katherine showed the philosophers to be fools and even converted the Emperor's wife (who was then herself martyred).

I wanted to take a moment to use this feast to plug another book I really like. It is Saints: Lives and Illuminations published by Eerdman's. It's not specifically an Orthodox book, but it is a collection of brief lives of many pre-schism saints, so all are saints of our Orthodox tradition. The lives are quite short: just a paragraph or so. And each is illustrated with a lovely colorful depiction of the saint. They are not iconographic. They are much more Western and realistic, but are still respectful and quite lovely. I was pleasantly surprised to find this book in a children's bookstore about six years ago. We've been enjoying (and giving it as gifts and buying it for our church bookstore) ever since. I really like that these stories are quick and easy to read, but beautifully tell the lives of our major saints. This morning instead of reading the life of the saint from the Prologue, we used this instead. Anytime we can read a life with an illustration, my kids are even happier. Some of the other saints included in this book are John Chrysostom, Nicholas of Myra, Great Martyr Barbara, Scholastica and Benedict, Columba, Mary of Egypt, Moses the Ethiopian, Brigid, Nina, Constantine and Helen, Patrick of Ireland, Monica and Augustine, Great Martyr George, Spyridon, Ephraim the Syrian and many others.

Nativity Book #11 - Grandpa Bear's Christmas

This is the eleventh of my postings about our 40 books of Nativity. You can read about the tradition here.

Today's book proves why it's good for us to do this tradition. It's a Christmas book which has been on our shelf for years . . . and we've never read until today. I honestly can't remember where or how we got it. Maybe one of my reader's gave it to us a while back?

Grandpa Bear's Christmas is a set of four Christmas stories about a bear family. It's not really my favorite book and a little too wordy, but as is usually the case with such books, my kids were transfixed. Why do they often love the books which I find to be a tedious? Anyway, not a bad book, just not my favorite. Two of the stories are about Santa Claus, so if you like to avoid such stories, avoid this book. It's not really at all about the Nativity, but is a nice look at a family and a good relationship between a Grandfather and his grandchildren.

When little brother learns from big brother . . .

. . . sometimes it's disastrous (like light saber fights and mean language), but other times its delightful and funny. Today, is one such example of the latter. I've realized that 3yo has been learning Ancient Roman History. Seems he's pretty clear on the date of the fall of the Roman Empire. All day he's been walking around reciting:

"476, Rome was in a fix, Little Romulus bid farewell, and powerful Rome fell."

Nativity Book # 10 - The Shepherd's Christmas

This is the tenth of my postings about our 40 books of Nativity. You can read about the tradition here.

Wow! It's already day 10 of the Nativity Fast! We're already one quarter of the way to the Feast of the Nativity (at least for those of us on the New Calendar)! This fast always passes too quickly.

Today's book is a nice Christmas book from the Archbooks collection available from Concordia Press. I wrote about this collection here. The Shepherd's Christmas is one of the better books in this series. The illustrations are a little too cartoonish for my taste, but the story is nice. It's short (good for wiggly three year olds) and is a retelling of the Christmas story from the perspective of the shepherds. It is specifically about a little boy shepherd who witnesses the Birth of Christ (and the coming of the angels) on his first night to watch over the sheep with the other shepherds. The message in the end is that though the boy is afraid, he finds comfort in Christ. Today it provided a nice opportunity to stop and talk to the kids about this idea when we're already otherwise distracted by preparations for Thanksgiving!

Nativity Book #9 - The First Christmas, A pop-up Nativity book

This is the ninth of my postings about our 40 books of Nativity. You can read about the tradition here.
Our book for yesterday was The First Christmas, A pop-up Nativity book from DK Publishers. My boys got this as an Advent gift from my parents several years ago. It was really fun that year because it comes with a little pop-up Nativity set made from card stock. It was quite fun to play with these that first year. After that, the clutter got the better of me and the little paper figures went to the trash. But the book is still fun because it has some great pop-up scenes on the pages.

Nativity Book #8 - The Little Boy's Christmas Gift

This is the eighth of my postings about our 40 books of Nativity. You can read about the tradition here.

Today's book was one of my favorite books by John Speirs: The Little Boy's Christmas Gift. It is a lovely tale about the journey of the Magi which is akin to the story of The Little Drummer Boy. It is illustrated with gorgeous illustrations inspired by the work of the Brueghels and old illuminated manuscripts. My boys love to find the little boy following at the back of the caravan in each illustration.

Nativity Book #7 - The Story of Mary the Mother of God

This is the seventh of my postings about our 40 books of Nativity. You can read about the tradition here.
Yesterday's book was The Story of Mary the Mother of God written and illustrated by Dorrie Papademetriou. Since Nov. 21 is the Feast of the Entrance of the Mother of God into the Temple, we opened and read this book. I love this book mostly because I really love the bright illustrations. It tells the story of the life of the Mother of God in simple words for all ages, including her birth, her entrance into the temple, her and the Annunciation.

Nativity Book #6 - The Entrance of the Theotokos into the Temple

This is the sixth of my postings about our 40 books of Nativity. You can read about the tradition here.
Today's book we opened and read as a preparation for tomorrow's feast: The Entrance of the Theotokos into the Temple. It is part of the Feasts of the Church series by Sister Elayne which I described here. It is available from Archangel Books here. (By the way, Archangel books has a very nice online store, but their storefront is even better. If you are ever in the St. Louis area, it is really worth the trip. It's a lovely store with lots of Orthodox books, icons, unique gifts and many neat "finds" which I haven't seen in other Orthodox book stores.)

I love the story of the Entrance of the Mother of God: how she entered the Temple at the age of three led by virgins carrying lamps. This morning my boys were really surprised to realize that she went to live in the Temple at the age of three and was fed by the angels. What a beautiful history we have as Christians!

Nativity Book #5 - The Miraculous Child

This is the fifth of my postings about our 40 books of Nativity. You can read about the tradition here.
Today's book is The Miraculous Child which is a Christmas folktale from Russia, told by Aleksi Currier and illustrated by Nadezda Glazunova. This is a beautiful story about almsgiving and the miracle of the Christ's love for us. It is told in verse, which is a little long for smaller children, but my 7yo really enjoys it now. And in fact, my 3yo listened attentively to it this afternoon, when offered a snack to eat while listening. In some past years I have just paraphrased it because just enjoying the lovely illustrations was enough

Boys will be boys . . .

Why, oh why, do boys insist on beating each other up? I remember my brother and cousin doing it. I've heard stories about my uncles, my dad and my uncle, and my husband and his brothers, but it still continues to baffle me. Why does playing necessarily involve beating on each other? The fact is, it does. And it especially does around here now as the weather gets cooler and we're inside more and more. I had been intervening whenever I heard one of those bloodcurdling screams coming from another room. But now, I've resolved to take a more laissez-faire approach. They can come to me when they need me to work it out. Otherwise, I will intervene when there are serious injuries (and then with harsh punishment in most cases). We start out the day with a reminder to "go easy" on each other, and then often refresh that at lunch time when Daddy is home. But, if they are both doing it maybe they need to fight it out? I don't know.

Yesterday was one of those days. I told my husband that I think throughout the afternoon there was rarely a period of more than 10 minutes which was scream-free. Sure we had a nice poetry tea time and got some reading and other schoolwork done, but much of the afternoon was just hitting, pushing and screaming. At one point near the end of the day, I was in the kitchen making dinner. Both boys were in the living room playing. I heard an awful scream coming from 3yo. I started to run to the rescue, but then checked myself and decided to wait and listen. 3yo screamed for a few seconds, then I heard 7yo's voice:

"I'm sorry, I'm really sorry. Really I am. OK, now you can beat me. Beat me now. Do it! As hard as you can!"

I didn't hear any more noise, so I guess 3yo agreed and the problem was solved.

Five minutes later, more screaming. Then 7yo's voice again:

"Sorry. But you do it now. You toss me down, OK? Do it hard."

Whatever. I guess if it works and they still love each other . . . Boys!

Nativity Book #4 - The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey

This is the fourth of my postings about our 40 books of Nativity. You can read about the tradition here.

Today's book is my husband's absolute favorite: The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey by Susan Wojciechowski. The illustrations by P.J. Lynch are really beautiful and the story brings tears every time we read, well every time HE reads it because he is usually the one to read this story aloud. I think he likes it because it is about a woodcarver and he loves to carve wood. But, really this is a lovely story about love, death, family, children and a special set of Nativity figures. The text is beautifully written, but is a bit long for children under 4 or 5. I sometimes paraphrase it for my younger son, because the illustrations are beautiful and can still captivate him with my paraphrased text. My oldest son loves all of the text, and in fact, a few of the quotes from grumpy Mr. Toomey have become regular sayings around our house.

This book was made into a full-length movie last year, but we haven't see it yet.