All Saints Day

All Saints Day is something I've wanted to celebrate with the boys for the last few years, but it just hasn't happened.  At the Godly Play training I was able to look through book 7, which is the stories of the saints.  And I have a dream of making up story bags for several different saints (like the one I made for St. Patrick) to share through the year and to delve into on All Saints Day.  I love the idea of sharing stories of those who have gone before us through history and celebrating their love for God, others and creation.

Yesterday I woke up thinking that I would love to make doughnuts to celebrate and that I wanted to tell a story with figures.  Well, neither of those things happened, but we did go to the bakery to buy doughnuts and took them to Daddy as a surprise at work.  And we made a saints game, which was a lot of fun (more fun to make than to play I think!)

We were at church in the morning for a play group and looked at a stained glass window of St. Leonard, which we see every week and always makes me wonder who he was and what he did.  We came home and read his story in a book of Saints we have out of the library.  Later in the Day Jonah helped me make a paper chain (St. Leonard's symbol because he is the patron saint of prisoners) and then the boys and I made or found symbols of a couple other saints we knew (heart - St. Valentine, clover - St. Patrick, dragon - St. George...) and then we read some stories and looked up the symbols (this website is very helpful) for saints we didn't know much (if anything) about (St. Ambrose - beehive, St. Gregory - dove, St. Brigid - cow...)  We collected all the symbols in a bowl and had a bit of a quiz for Daddy and a friend after dinner to see how many they knew.

So, for a first attempt it was a lovely All Saints Day (they are still talking about the doughnuts!)  Do share in the comments if you have (or have heard of) any fun All Saints Day traditions!