"We saw his star at its rising and have come to do him homage." (Matthew 2:2)
It's such a dark and damp day here ... we had hoped to squeeze in some sledding this morning, but not only is the weather - for lack of a better word - yucky, but the boys seem to be coming down with a cold ...
On a brighter note, we're celebrating Epiphany today, the day when the Magi arrived at the manger, bearing gifts for the Baby Jesus. In our little reenactment, the Christmas star appeared over our nativity scene (a cut-out made from sparkling scrapbook paper, tied to a ceiling beam) ...
... and it led the three wise men all the way across the learning room to the creche. I had meant to have the wise men show up with golden (chocolate) coins but I forgot to pick some up when I ran my weekly errands. Oh well, maybe next year!
We also kicked off our January Bulletin Board today ...
It was so hard to take down the Advent Tree Board because it was so festive looking and we just had such a good time with it. I knew I had to do something fun to make the transition from holiday to everyday a little easier.
So working around our January learning theme (winter stars), I wrapped a few lengths of foil-star garland along the perimeter of the board. Then I tacked up a sheet of white wrapping paper and brightly colored foam star shapes, spelling out our January message.
Finally, I tacked five tiny white sacks onto the board, one for each Sunday of the month:
Inside each sack is a note with something nice to do or think about on that Sunday, or for the week ahead. (The snowflake shape is a leftover from the banner project we worked on last week.)
So here's what we found in this Sunday's bag:
My note, some frankincense (incense), and a piece of blessed chalk brought home from church this morning.
After lunch we burned the incense (near an open window so it wasn't too overpowering) and I got up on a chair to write the Epiphany blessing above our front doorway. I'm still making notes and plans for our winter star study this month, but I will be sharing the ideas here with you all just as soon as I can ...
In the meantime, I can't believe we're "back to business" next week! It will be hard to get back into the work-a-day frame of mind after so much time on "vacation." Ah well, all good things must come to an end ... and if we're lucky, there's something else to look forward to just around the corner!
I hope you all had a lovely weekend ~ see you again very soon. :)
