In the continual effort to ween our family off secularism, and immerse my little kids in the original meaning of Christmas, I have devised the following steps. Feel free to submit your rituals around our most sacred holy day: Sunday before: -first set up our nativity scene; the manger is empty -Christmas displays and light shows in the city, such as at the Wanamaker building -Christmas movies -books: Drummer Boy, Little Lost Angel Christmas Eve (Dec. 24): -Lessons & Carrols service at the parish, at 4pm -Midnight Vigil service (more optimistic than realistic with little kids) -hang stalkings with my kids -the kids set up a table with a plate of cookies & glass of milk Christmas Day (Dec. 25): -when the kids wake up, the baby Christ is discovered to be in manger -the cookies they left are discovered to be oddly half-eaten, the glass of milk is sipped from -they kids their stalkings now have gifts -Christmas Morning Service with the whole family -whole family has the Christmas feast (goose and/or duck), thanks to the wonderful wife
Glad to see I'm not the only one who enjoys a more gamey sort of fowl for Christmas dinner. Unfortunately, it has been some years since I last lived in Ohio and harvested the bird myself. But Harris Teeter stocks a fine selection of suitable birds at this time of year. Gov. Northam just announced a curfew for Virginia recently so we are deciding when to reschedule the candle light service on Christmas Eve. In the Puerto Rican tradition, Epiphany is nearly as celebrated as Christmas (dia de los tres reyes magos). My wife held back a large present for the children to open on that day. I have continued that custom and my children get one of their bigger gifts on Epiphany.
My grandmother made a goose one year. Her brother Byron had shot it just a few days before Christmas. It was very tender and flavorful but neither one of them had dug the shotgun pellets out of it! That goose was full of steel shot.
Lol, brings back memories of my childhood. We ate a lot of game meat when I was growing up, and I remember digging shotgun pellets out of grouse, pheasant, game hen, ducks and geese. (Once I got a piece of venison that still had a fragment of the bullet in it.)
Deer is regularly consumed at our house. We don't have Zombie deer here yet so it is still safe to eat.
If you're used to store-bought chicken or turkey, you probably wouldn't care for the taste at first - it can be pretty bitter compared to factory-fed birds. But once you get used to it, and if it's prepared right, it's delicious and flavorful. I prefer duck to goose, but they're both good.
Goose was had at the last year's Christmas family dinner. And then it was that we discovered that geese are 99% bones! This year we are going to go with duck instead...
Oh dear! We've ordered a goose for Christmas for the first time this year. hopefully it'll be enough. Decided on following a Gordon Ramsey recipe on how to cook it.
I might pinch your idea about waiting until it's Christmas day before putting Jesus in the manger for next year. We normally go to a Christingle service on Christmas Eve where the children make a Christingle orange and learns what it symbolises. I think these visible interactive pictures of theological concepts really help kids to grasp doctrine. Unfortunately with the covid restrictions here we'll have to do it ourselves at home instead of meeting at the church. I haven't heard of the little lost angel book, I'll need to check it out. one of my favourite Christmas storybooks is "When Santa learned the Gospel" which I like to read to my children in the run-up to Christmas.