Halloween/ All Saints Day

We are moving in SSSlllooowww motion around here today. I guess it's sort of like a half-day of school. Jake did three days worth of spelling today and he and I finished the chapter book that we've been reading aloud for months (don't worry we've read other stuff in between), now he's outside playing with the neighbors (because in the rest of the world school is over for the day anyway)...good enough! Madi's done a pretty good amount of work, maybe 3/4 of a day, she did however fall asleep in the middle of it. Jonathan has worked a fair amount on virtual school stuff, so I think we can safely pack it in. We had our traditional trick-or-treating hayride with friends last night, always a ton of fun! Then we went on to the traditional Halloween party with other friends. The kids slept over there, but I use the term slept rather loosely, I suspect that more candy and less sleep than is optimal for growing kids occurred over there last night, but who I am to mess with our traditions?

Speaking of traditions, today is All Saints Day. I copied and pasted the following about the saints because it is often one of the most misunderstood aspects of Catholicism.

The Communion of Saints
Like all Christians, Catholics believe in life after death. Those who have lived good lives and died in the faith of Christ will, as the Bible tells us, share in his resurrection.

While we live together on earth as Christians, we are in communion, or unity, with one another. But that communion doesn’t end when one of us dies. We believe that Christians in heaven, the saints, remain in communion with those of us on earth.

So, just as we might ask a friend or family member to pray for us, we can approach a saint with our prayers, too.

You can also read more about All Saints Day here and here.

We've always been big celebrators of Halloween. Candy and costumes, what's not to love? It would be great to have the kids actually dress up like saints, but so far that's not part of our family tradition. We generally don't dress very scary, with the exception of Jonathan's Darth Maul last year. I lived almost 30 years before I even knew that some conservative Christians didn't "do Halloween". It's taken me another 10 years to realize there are even some Catholics among this group. Madi did inform me today, however, that kids from one of the most conservative Catholic families that I know were dressing up last night as a vampire and Taylor Swift, so I'm pretty sure what we do is just fine.

In case you can't tell Jake was Paul Revere (he was annoyed that a lot of people mistook him for a pirate), Madi was a maid (she was going to be a kangaroo, but that costume got stolen--not from us, long story), and Jonathan was a scarecrow. Notice the banana, the latest member of our household, Mickey.















On the hayride...



The morning after...I don't think I need to point out that Jake apparently slept in his costume!



Father, All-Powerful and ever-living God,
today we rejoice in the holy men and women
of every time and place.
May their prayers bring us your forgiveness and love
We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Liturgy of the Hours