The Epiphany

Today is the Epiphany, also known as the Three Kings Day.

I know, as I have reading around, that many people take the Crib and the Tree down and all the decorations after Christmas or after New Year's Day but there are Twelve Days of Christmas, we should only take it down AFTER the Epiphany and the Crib after the Presentation of the Lord in the Temple. But it's ok to put also the Crib down after the King's Day.

This was a way to teach the basics of Faith without the risk of being persecuted in that calamitous time in England when Catholics were arrested and killed In Odium Fidei.

The meaning of the lyrics is:

The two turtle doves were the Old and New Testaments

The three French hens stood for faith, hope, and love.

The four calling birds were the four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

The five golden rings rerepresented the first five books of the Old Testament, which describe man's fall into sin and the great love of God in sending a Savior.

The six geese a-laying stood for the six days of creation.

Seven swans a-swimming represented the sevenfold gifts of the Holy Spirit-----Prophesy, Serving, Teaching, Exhortation, Contribution, Leadership, and Mercy.

The eight maids a-milking were the eight beatitudes.

Nine ladies dancing were the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit-----Charity, Joy, Peace, Patience [Forbearance], Goodness [Kindness], Mildness, Fidelity, Modesty, Continency [Chastity].

The ten lords a-leaping were the Ten Commandments.

The eleven pipers piping stood for the eleven faithful Apostles.

The twelve drummers drumming symbolized the twelve points of belief in The Apostles' Creed.

(https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/resource/55904/the-history-of-the-twelve-days-of-christmas)

And the Partrige means Our Lord.

As for me I will keep the Crib on till the Presentation of the Lord, Candlemas, also known as Our Lady of the Candles or the Light Day (2.February), and take the Tree and decoration after today, slowly, without stress.

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Ridge haven Homestead  for  Homestead Blog Hope

Did you begin wrapping ?

So I've been all happy shopping for Christmas. 

One thing that I remind you, dear reader, is to be careful with the wrapping or you will find yourself in the days before Christmas panicking because you didn't wrapp enough presents - or any of them.

Don't do that. If you have the strength, wrapp at least one or two, or three presents a day, avoid big sessions, unless you have the time for it.

On saturdays in the afternoon I try to wrapp for one or two hours and then stop, or I will  be very tired and the pleasure of this activity will go off.

Please, please, do some wrapping now while is not too late. You will be so pleased with yourself if you have control on it and in the days before Christmas you look back and see how much you did and that you may breathe with relief.

Do it, ok?

I bought some new wrapping papers. I still have lots of the previous Christmas but I can't avoid buying some more every year. 😃

Now I can't but as soon as I can I will post about me wrapping and my Christmas papers.

Oh this blessed time. We give thanks.

Have you got everything you need for Christmas?

 

Have you got eveything you need for Christmas? Food, ingredients, last things ?

Christmas is quickly arriving, we have only 33 days till Christmas. What? 33 days?😲

So let's think.

• Have you the list with names of people you want to give presents?
• What do you want to give to that people?
• Is already bought? 
• If not when will you buy?
• When will you wrap the presents?
• What about the food, do you know what you will make for Christmas?
• When will you buy the ingredients?

Now seat down and think on those questions. Take a paper or a notebook, even better, and write the answers to those questions. Plan and plan. And then do it. Do something. Do at least one thing. And tomorrow do another thing. With a happy heart. Don't be anxious, just think, plan and act. Begin now, you still have time. But don't dilly dally, just do something everyday.

Are we there yet?

Christmas Day

Almost there !! Just 40 days till Christmas.

May Our Lord gives us a happy and peaceful time in our homnes and hearts in this joyfull season, all the way till Christmas.

How many days till Christmas

Days till Christmas

We can say that truly there are 49 days to Christmas because we don't count today neither the 25 of December. 

Don't forget to plan so things will run smoodly.

• - How many more presents do you need  to buy?
• - To whom are those presents?
• - Think of everybody that you want to give a present(s)
• - Make a list with the names and what you bought for them
• - The ones you dind't buy yet, you need to see if you know their sizes 
• - What about money? Are you spending too  much?
• - And the food that you will have, it's already bought? when will you buy it?
• - What about the clothes that you will wear and what you will use on the table?

All those things need to be thought and written. Think and write. Plan so you will be calm in all this time.

If you do Thanksgivining make plans also for it: what you need to buy for the lunch of the day and what you need to do before.

Everything thought and planned so you will be calm.

And we carry on in this beautiful time

Oh I like so much Christmas and the days before. And by days before I mean the months starting on the final days of October, officially, and non officially in September. That is, in my mind I begin thinking of Christmas, of presents to buy, on all the good things that come with the wonderful season.

This year it has been of the Will of God that we have a serious health problem, not in my house but with someone of my family. It's difficul to endure but we must accept it and I make all the effort I can to carry on living and savouring the beauty of this time: Autumn and Winter and the preparations for Christmas.

Our Lord never leaves us alone so we carry on living and trying every day to be happy.

It's open Season

I'm all happy and singing Rudolph the Red Nosed Raindeer.

Why is that? It's because in mylife I always begin Christmas time on the 28 of October.

I will tell you why. In October we have four birthays: first my nephew, then one of my girls, then mine and in the end, on the 27, it's my uncle's.

So, till his birthday, it's not time for Christmas - well, officially, because I don't tell anyone that in September I'm already strolling in all the shopping sites I can looking for signs of that blessed season.

Anyway, now we arrived at Christmas time !! 🎄

So, what am I doing now?

Besides singing Rudolph on top of my lungs, I will make a list of presents - that I have already some bought since September it's a thing that nobody needs to know. 😄

I will go fetch all the wrapping papers left over from last year - oh joy  - and the ribbons and tags also. 

That way I can begin wrapping the already bought presents, which is an activity that I like so much, while listening on youtube to all the Christmas songs I can find, mainly the more vintage ones.

This one is my favourite for the wrapping activity: 

It's Beginning To Look a Lot Like Christmas 

Then I will beging thinking about the food for Christmas, the Eve and the Day. 

I will make a  list of the groceries, the cod, the meat, the potatoes, cabbage and pumpkin for the soups, the flour, sugar and all the trimmings for desserts - lots of them! 😀

(no, I never made these ones but who knows?)

And I will make a list too for the non perishables and non food related, like nice Christmassy napkins and some more little decorations that I can't resist to buy every year. And I say little ones because I think I have enough decorations.

And another thing that I want to do is a good overall cleaning and I will make a list for it too.

What's more? Oh so many things to think and do. I feel like dancing.

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Grace Filled Moments

A new time

So Christmas ended with the Three Wise Kings Feast Day. It's now time to not have anymore the Christmas Tree and other decorations. Some people rush to take them on the 7 of January, others take a little everyday. If you want, you  may take the Nativity too but even better is to leave it till Candlemass.

The best thing is to have pacience and take little by little and everyday a bit more so when the weekend arrives everything is done and ready to put in the attic, basement or whatever you have - this means that last weekend everything but the nativity should be taken away but never mind if you didn't finished it yet. Everyday a little and, when you realize it, things are done.

Even if I like Christmas so much it's good to see the house going back to the normal days. There is always a feeling of new beginning in each new year and with the Christmas gone till next December we feel it even more.

This year, or I must say even when last year was reaching his final days, something came to my mind and that was: to take care of myself. 

 

This new year I will take care of myself and be very good to me.

And then I feel so strong, so able of really take care of myself and, by extension, of my house, of my home.

Yes, a new kitchen was to happen last year but, God willing, it will be this year. And also some other improvements in the livingroom and in my bedroom.

It's a new year, let's have that strenght, that conscience that we must take care of us, of our things, our life and that we are able to do it.

As I said in a previous post, let's begin.

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Costal Bohemian

Esme Salon

Christmas at my home - how we do it

This is how usually we do Christmas Day at my home and I hope to do the same way this year.

After a all day cooking Christmas Eve and a happy and a blessed dinner we go to bed quite late. In many houses there are the tradition to go to Midnight Mass but it was never a custom in my house, not even when we were children.

Now I'll tell you how it is Christmas morning in my home.

When is still night and everybody is sleeping - and if they are not they pretend to be - I carry a lot of bags full of presents downstairs and fill the sofas with presents. Each person has his sofa and on it they will find their presents.

Now that I haven't little children anymore, the number of presents diminished a lot but even so all the room is filled with happy colours from the wrapping papers and the bows. It's such a joy to see all that !

Then I go up again and fill the stockings already hanged on the door knobs of their rooms and I do something that is a tradition in my corner of the world, at least for some: I put a present on a pair of shoes that each of them leaves at their bedroom door. When we were children we used to believe that Jesus left the present there and in a way He did it, because it was Him who helped my family to have money to buy so many presents.

Once my eldest daughter, who were begining to grow and thinking on some things, asked me if it was really Jesus who gave the present. I explained to her that that present was not Jesus who gave directely but He gave me the possiblity to give her and most of all, Jesus indeed gives us things that we need, and that so many times in life we ask, as He directed us to do and He gives us: "Ask and it will be given to you".

After having all the presents in order, which was not difficult because they were all sorted in bags by name, it was only to put them on the sofas, etc, I will go from door to door saying Ho Ho Ho Ho, a sign that everybody can come downstairs, bringing the presents they found in the stocking and on the shoes. Then they go to the fireplace where they take the present Santa left and comment if Rudolph ate his biscuits and if Santa drunk his Port.

All this happens since they were all little children and it's a tradition that we still keep.

So in the livingroom, after unwrapping our presents amidst a lot of laughing and joy we ran to make us ready for Mass, usually with some new piece of clothes, this after picking up all the torn papers and bows which we will take to the reciclying bin on our way to Mass.

After Mass the children set the table and the lunch, which is half done, is finished and almost ready to go to the table.

While some are in the kitchen, others set the table, others put the apetizers ready for the guests - my extended family - who were almost arriving - now we don't do it anymore as my grandmother, mother and father are not among us anymore, so brother and sister do in their own homes for themselves. 

Then the work at the kitchen is almost done and after a drink and eating some little things, we all go to the table. Lunch goes all the afternoon and when it's time to have dinner nobody is ready for more food and what everybody want is to go to their own home and rest watching a little tv or something like that - I  mean, when they were alive and they and my simblings came to have lunch with us. 

Now it's only us what is not bad anyway, as times goes by and life changes but we must accept it and give thanks.

We will not have the gattering of all the family at my home but it's ok, Christmas is more than that. We have all our children, now grown up, around the table and that is so good.

At that time once again I thank God for such happy and blessed days.

May Our Lord grant us again this year a blessed, peaceful and happy Christmas to us and you all.

The Christmas Tree

 As everybody knows, I can only think about Christmas time.

Now I'm thinking about my Christmas Tree, that we will put up again, as we always do, on the first day of December.

It is quite old, we bought it some twenty years ago and it begins to show its age but we like it so much that we are decided that it will be there, every Christmas, for some more years.

Then it came to my mind to post some pictures that I already posted in other years to remind me of past Christmas. 

It will  be more details than the whole tree but each one will remind me of hapy times and make me feel looking forward to see it up this year again with all the decorations that we have for a long time.

I always count on my girls to put the tree up and decorate, they already know how I want things done.

So, next 1 of December there we will be carrying the boxes of the tree, the lights, the balls, everything, to put the tree up.

I can't wait for it.

Sweet things for Christmas

Christmas is a time for good things, and also the ones to eat. So now I'll post about the desserts and all non savoury things for Christmas that we are used to have.

In my home, rather, in my family since I know myself, we have some things on Christmas that we can't fail making. They are portuguese things like Rabanadas, slices of fried bread, Sonhos and Bolo Vicente (Vincent cake).

About this cake I must tell you that is a tradition developed by my grandmother as she always made it at Christmas time - and only then, only at Christmas time!

So everybody waited for that glorious moment.

When I got married I replaced my grandmother on that task and started baking  the aforementioned cake for several households in various sizes, depending on the number of persons in each house.

My grandmother is in Heaven now and I never stopped baking the Bolo Vicente because everybody likes it so much and to honour her too.

So another thing she always did were the Rabanadas, also called Fatias Douradas (Golden Slices) and the Sonhos and, as with the cake, I replaced her doing for us and for them, my Grandmother and Parents. To the other homes I din't make it but as we all used to get together for Christmas Eve and Day, they  always eat them in my house.

For the Rabanadas we always mix sugar and cinnamon and put on top of them while they are still warm. My uncle likes to eat them with honey. It's very good too.

Never mind the food that appears first in the picture, this is sausage rolls, I mean the other one, it's Arroz Doce, a thing similar to Rice Pudding but much. much better.

A Christmas Log made by my sister. Oh I do like it but mainly the Fios de Ovos, on top of it.

The Bolo Rei, a must in every Christmas in this corner of the world - here half eaten because it's very good.

And we can't forget the Mince Pies

and the Christmas Pudding.

And something that I always make for Christmas but that we begin eating since the first falling leaves: Apple Crumble. 

These pictures I'm posting here are from past Christmases but I will try hard to not forget to take some pictures of the ones I will make this year and post them after Christmas.

.

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