Ha! I bet you think this post is going to be about a certain ball-dropping tradition that will take place soon. Not so. Instead, I have a question for all of you, my loyal readers (however few of you there are). In the Volpe household this year, I think we did a pretty good job of celebrating Advent. We had nightly family prayer, complete with candle lighting, special reading (a children's Advent book), and an Advent calender. We celebrated St. Nicholas' day, and decorated in preparation for Christmas. Maria very much enjoyed her "candle book" and the special prayers that we said. In fact she's been asking for it ever since we stopped on Christmas Eve.
This is where the ball dropping comes in. Now granted that I have been sick, and feeling rather like I'm observing the family goings on from Pluto, I still feel that we should be doing something more to celebrate Christmas. I tried, briefly, to find prayers to use with children for the Christmas season, but with no luck. So really, we haven't been praying to together as a family, and I don't feel like we adequately explained what Christmas is really about to Maria. I fear the large mound of new presents is doing the talking for us.
Now that I'm feeling somewhat better, I want to return to some nightly prayer, appropriate to the season and to Maria's age, so that we can do a better job of explaining Christmas to her. I realized we probably have a few more years before she's ruined for life and only thinks of Christmas in terms of presents, but I don't want to wait that long to try to teach her the truth.
This is where you come in. What are you doing in your homes to celebrate the Christmas season? Are there specific prayers you use, and if so where did you find them? Am I crazy to try incorporating the liturgical year into our family prayer, with children so young?
It's one of my goals for the new year to more faithfully pray together as a family. So before the ball drops tonight, I'm hoping you can help me avoid 'dropping the ball' in our prayer time.
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