Friday, December 15, 2023

Week in Review: A Short Advent, Favorite Christmas Songs, and Return of the College Kids

Me, back in November: 

I'm gonna go really hard this Advent since it's only 3 weeks long!  I'm giving up sweets, drinks, and eating healthy!

Also Me: 

We have to feast and celebrate on...
December 3rd: St. Francis Xavier (our parish patron saint).
December 6th: St. Nicholas (stockings!).
December 8th: Solemnity of Immaculate Conception
December 12th: Our Lady of Guadalupe.
December 13th: St. Lucy (our dog's namesake)
December 22nd: The Holy Family.
And every Sunday in Advent, obviously.
See it's not my fault, I'm just reallllly Catholic ;)

Speaking of St. Nick - this photo popped up from when Eamon was in middle school, too funny.

For Our Lady of Guadalupe, which occurred on Taco Tuesday, a nice coincidence, we feasted on takeout tacos and Christmas colored tortilla chips:

I got that Our Lady of Guadalupe candle from the grocery store!

And we all mourned our dear traditional dessert of Choco Tacos.

This meme made me laugh:



I do actually love The Little Drummer Boy song (Lonestar version), it always makes me cry.

    

Here's the other Christmas songs that move me to tears and get me in the true spirit:

 




This week at work, we had an Ugly Sweater contest, a Wine Gift Swap, Christmas Trivia, a Candy Exchange and a Gingerbread House Competition.  This was my team's creation, please take a moment to appreciate the Santa face and snowball-fighting elves, which are the extent of my creativity.


Maggie won the Most Improved Player on her volleyball team, got her Varsity letter and was called "Favorite Martin" by her volleyball coach, who also taught theology to all four of my oldest kids.  Sorry boys!

The theme was Christmas jammies, we don't normally go out like this.

 Big news in 4th grade this week.  Declan's class has been on a rollercoaster ride of teachers.  One was supposed to teach but got a new job, then one who was moved up from another class but changed her mind right before school started, then their new principal  had to step in and teach temporarily, then a new teacher got hired and was terrible and left, and now back to their principal as their teacher until a plan is made.  The kids love their principal (and so do we) and we're so grateful that she is stepping up to tackle both jobs with grace and grit.

Also can we all say a prayer for some great Catholic school teachers please?  They seem very hard to come by.  I think the pandemic burned out a lot of educators.  

This weekend is full of things to do, but the best part is that my college boys are coming home for a month!  I'm so happy to have us all under one roof together, as is everybody else in the family.  There's hardly anything more exciting for younger siblings than having their big siblings come home from college.  I remember it well, being the 5th of six kids, and it's so cute to relive as the parent.  Hug them tight while they are within arm's reach.  Have a wonderful weekend everybody, choose joy!

14 comments:

  1. I am SO excited for you to have all your birdies in the nest! What a gift! And yes, Catholic teachers get my prayers often but I will absolutely be praying specifically for Declan's class.

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  2. Catholic school teachers are awesome - we had to deal with a massive water leakage in the school building over the summer, so they're been teaching in a parish activity center with small classrooms, no storage, and few supplies. And all the teachers are doing great, and my kids are learning. And they decided to take advantage of being down town to take weekly walks to library for English, visiting the elder apartment building on holidays, and going to the local college and courthouse for enrichment in history. Making lemons out of lemonade - that's what Catholic teachers do! (However, everyone is ready to move back to the regular building in January.) Right now, I'm subbing for one of the teachers and I can see how hard this is (very close quarters and noisy!) so they deserve much praise for surviving this term.
    I hope your school can find a good teacher soon!

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    1. That situation sounds SO HARD! Wow, you all are troopers!

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  3. I'm just reallllly Catholic! ~ This may be my very favorite Colleen quote of all time! Love your family and your love of family. Enjoy having all your people at home.

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    1. Thank you Billie Jo, Merry Christmas to your beautiful family!

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  4. Ha -- this cracked me up: "See it's not my fault, I'm just reallllly Catholic ;)". Love the drummer boy meme, too. And yay for Maggie! Favorite Martin sounds like an excellent award.

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    1. Favorite Martin is often sought after, difficult to capture :)

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  5. Congrats to Maggie!
    I laughed at your I'm Really Catholic comment. How can you worry about food/drinks when all those activities are planned?
    I also love the Lone Star version of Little Drummer Boy. The meme made me LOL!

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    1. Yes, it's too hard to not celebrate during the holiday season - January is coming!

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    2. The Little Drummer Boy is my favorite song! I was shocked when someone on social media recently said they hated it. WHAT???? I can't even comprehend that! So glad all your kids are under one roof! Enjoy being surrounded by all your kiddos! What a wonderful Christmas gift!

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  6. I died at Maggie not usually wearing PJ pants out usually, because I noticed the pj pants and thought, I think Curly has the same pair. Then I did a little OOP,S WE HAVE LOST OUR FOCUS AS PARENTS because our kid wears out of the house all.the.time. Sheesh. Ha.

    Your are one dedicated Catholic for celebrating all the right things and knowing all the dates. Impressive.

    My kids are all home too and it is so much fun. We had 100% attendance at Reg's game Saturday night.

    I love that meme. Drummer Boy is my favorite Christmas song.

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    1. Maggie did wear pajama pants to Drivers Ed classes in November, when I was shocked, she said everybody was wearing them to the 3 hour night class. So you're just in the know! When you look for any excuse to eat and drink, you learn your feast days real quick ;)

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