All Hallows Eve and All Saints Day

On October 31, the eve of All Saints Day, the girls dressed up as saints to attend our parish's All Saints vigil Mass, which was followed by a "trunk or treat" in their saint costumes.  The Hispanic community has been doing this in past years, but this year the vigil Mass was bilingual.  It was my hope that more parishioners would attend this as an event that brings both Hispanic and non-Hispanic parishioners together, but alas, there were only three non-Hispanic families attending.  Attending Mass and then celebrating the saints should be what this day is about, so I was really excited to see that it would be a bilingual event this year!

Cecilia wanted to be Saint Clare again, which was wonderful for me, because I didn't have to do anything for her costume - she just wore the one from last year!

Caroline decided to dress as one of our newest saints, who was canonized on my goddaughter's baptism day!  We designed an Indian costume for her to be Saint Kateri Tekakwitha.

Here is the costume... minus the skirt.  The shirt is only sewn a little at the armpits.  Easy!  The skirt was a long piece that wrapped around and pinned - no sewing on that part!  The inspiration for making these came from here at Catholic Inspired.  We made the skirt differently, but the shirt is basically the same, except for the sleeves being longer on my version.  Caroline made her necklace herself.  The fringe on her boots was just pinned on as well.  The headdress was something I learned how to make when teaching "Indian Lore" at a summer camp many years ago.

Here are the girls behind our van before Mass... they were so excited they could wear their costumes in church!  And Caroline got to help present the gifts to the altar.

Here is our "trunk" decorated with saint coloring pages... the girls picked a few they wanted to use, and they colored them on the couple days leading up to October 31.

Here are the girls with our priest, Fr. Patrick... he told everyone to come dressed as either saints, angels, or Biblical figures... so he dressed as Pharaoh!  I don't know who all these other people are with them... I was handing out candy when this photo was taken!

We had ballet class on All Saints Day, but the next afternoon, we had a little homeschooling All Saints party!  Here are the kids with some of our saint-themed snacks, such as St. Bernadette's Firewood (pretzel sticks), St. Francis's Animal Friends (animal crackers), Saintly Halos (pineapple rings), and St. Gabriel's Trumpets (Bugles chips), to name a few.

Here are our cupcakes for the cupcake walk... they are actually a pumpkin bread recipe, baked as muffins, with chocolate chips in them and chocolate cream cheese frosting.  Each one had a saint holy card stuck in the top.  Behind them are the prizes for the games... I had some leftover holy cards and medals from last year, and I added some extra little St. Joseph books I had gotten in a bulk deal a couple years ago.  You can see the Saint Bingo sheets in front... I apparently didn't take a picture of them playing this; I was too busy trying to keep Lucy from stealing snacks from the other kids and drinking my pumpkin spice coffee, ha!

This game was called "Crown Mary the Queen of Heaven."  We used a garden statue of Mary, and I turned an embroidery hoop into a crown using some yellow cardstock and tape.  The kids took turns throwing the crown like a ring toss game, and if they chose to use something easier, I had a hula hoop as well.  Most were able to get the crown around the statue pretty easily... next time, I will know I can put the statue a bit farther away from them!

This game is called "St. Juan Diego's Rose Toss."  Juan Diego saw Mary appearing to him, and she showed him some fresh roses growing in winter as a sign to show to the bishop.  He gathered them up in his tilma, which is a cloak, and then God left a beautiful image of Mary on it.  For our game, the children tied "tilmas" around their necks and then held them out to catch plastic roses that were thrown by their partners.  They did it like an egg toss, backing up another step in between each toss.

Here is the cupcake walk... there were images of some saints on cards that I put in a circle on the driveway, and the children walked around them as a Catholic children's CD played.  When the music was stopped, I drew a name of a saint, and the child standing on that saint's card got to go choose a cupcake - yum!

And here I feel like I should make some sort of "flying nun" joke...

St. Clare swinging at the party!