Okay, I'm trying to be better about doing this. Tonight we had our Three Kings celebration, which is one of my very favorite things that we do as a family, so I thought that I would blog about it in hopes that I might inspire others to take it up.
First off, our celebrating begins on December 26. We get out the wise men and start them on the journey to Bethlehem.
Okay, I'm going to back up-to Advent. We have an Advent wreath (which is very easy to make, you just get a plain wreath and place the candles around it, you can get the candles cheap at Hobby Lobby). We read our Advent readings on the four Sundays leading up to Christmas, light the candles, and set out the appropriate part of the manger scene. The first week we get out the stable and animals, the second week we get out Mary and Joseph, the third week we get out the angel, and the fourth week we get out the shepherds and sheep. On Christmas Day we light the Christ Candle and place baby Jesus in the stable. And then on the 26, the wise men start their journey. They go from our back door, through our family room, and living room, and they end up in the stable today, on January 6, which is Epiphany.
If you want to do this with your kids, I suggest getting a manger scene that is durable and you aren't fussy about. We have 3 different manger scenes in our house. One is Precious Moments and it is pretty to look at and not to be touched. One is Fisher Price Little People which is totally to be touched and played with, so that the girls are learning the story with their own hands. And then we have this set, that we use for the Advent season. It is the manger scene that my grandparents used to own, and they didn't want it any more, and gave it to me. It is nice, but nothing that I worry about the girls breaking.
Okay, so every day we move the wise men. New this year, we bought a book called "The Twelve Days of Christmas" by Olivia Price. It contains an ornament for each of the 12 days of Christmas (which are the 12 days between Christmas and Epiphany). It's a cute book, with different readings on each page. But I mostly wanted it because I wanted to have a small tree and hang the ornaments up, 1 every day until the 6th. We bought a pre-lit Christmas tree at Wal-mart after Christmas and used it for this. I loved adding this to our celebrating because it helped the girls count the day, kind of like an Advent Calendar (don't get me started on Advent calendars, we have 5 of them, and I am obsessed about them-I'll do a blog all about them sometime).
Also I write down what I remember of my dreams each night for the 12 days. Supposedly it correlates to the year-like December 26 is January, December 27 is February. I don't really think that it does, but I dream a lot and it is fun to write them down. The girls even wrote down some of their dreams this year. (They don't really know yet that other moms don't do these things!)
Anyway, this all leads up to today-Epiphany. I cleaned the whole house today, that is step one. Then I made a King's Cake (there are specific recipes for them if you want, but I just make a cake that we feel like eating, this year it was a spice cake, per my dad's request). All you have to do is make a cake, and then add a bean (I used a dry lima bean). Stir it in the cake mix and bake it. Then after dinner my parents come over, we all get a slice of cake, and whoever gets the bean is the lucky one for the year. That person is blessed. Last year Nicholas got the bean and he had a great year (after all, he got a job that he loves). This year I had the bean! Pretty cool stuff, and the girls love it. We also read the story of the Magi (Matthew 2:1-12).
Then we bless the house. We light an incense stick and carry it around the house, blessing every corner and nook and cranny. When we have covered every inch, we send Nicholas outside with chalk and he writes "C+B+M 2012" above both doors. (It stands for Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar, the supposed names of the Magi). This shows that our house has been blessed.
It's all a little silly, and my husband is a great sport for putting up with me, I know. But it's great fun and we enjoy it.
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