Happy All Hallows Eve

It is the beginning of our celebration of all the holy men and women who have gone before us, the Church at Rest.  Halloween has taken a turn toward the scary and unholy, but is still a valid to remember the dead.  It has been such a crazy week that I am scrambling to pull together some activities for a get together with some great friends later.  So, I thought I would share a bit of our plans.

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The children are dressing up, but I do not let them dress up as anything scary, inappropriate, or "bad" influences like pirates, devils, and the like.  I think dressing up fuels the imagination, so I'm fine with it as long as it is pushing the children in a positive direction. Usually, we also have saints costumes for All Saints Day, but it seems October flew by without me thinking about that. I may just get the kids to pull something together from their dress up bin, tomorrow. Last All Souls Day, we walked the cemetery and prayed the Divine Mercy chapter. I am hoping to do that again this weekend.

Here are some links for All Saints resources, Have a very blessed weekend and God rest the souls of all the faithfully departed.

• As always, Jessica at Shower of Roses is chock full of amazing ideas.  I am going to attempt to pull together a couple of guessing jars and her saintly scavenger hunt.  Find her All  Saints resources here.
• Charlotte at Waltzing Matilda also has some beautiful games. We are going to do her saintly symbols scavenger hunt. You can find her posts here.
• Holy Heroes has a wonderful post on celebrating All Souls with children. You can find it here.
• We are going to pray the Litany of Saints today at the party, you can find it on the Pray More Novenas site, here.
• Lastly, we are going to make some saintly decorations to add some extra holiness to our home and share stories of our favorite saints with our friends. I'm making copies of a blank paper doll for each child to fill in and share.  (Paper Dali saints is a great place to find ready to color paper dolls if you don't want to make your own) There are so many projects that can be done, but being short on time and money, paper dolls is where we are at. However, check out my pinterest boards for more ideas.

God bless you, all! How are you celebrating this weekend of feasts?