Happy Feast of All Saints!

Now this is a feast I can sink my teeth into!

Now that the vigil is over, thank God (Oh!  Did I say that out loud?)...

Um. Sorry, folks.  I know it gets the collective dander up to openly admit that we're Halloween Scrooges over here at our house, but honestly, now...  It's not like we opt out of Christmas, ya know.

We love holidays, love the annual march through the calendar of the Liturgical Year.  We thoroughly enjoy the traditions surrounding the change of the seasons -- and have no problem with secular holidays that have wholesome meaning.  We're all over Groundhog Day, do up the hearts and flowers big-time at St. Valentine's,  wave our flags on the Fourth of July, and carve pumpkins in October -- while drinking pumpkin spice latte.

But -- and we truly don't think it makes us better than anyone else -- we just don't like Halloween as it's commonly celebrated. We do not trick or treat or do the spooky-ooky thing on the day before All Saints' Day.  And I don't apologize for this.  (Sorry, but I don't  ;0)   I do feel bad if others think this choice for our family is a judgment on them, though.  And I totally bristle when folks act like they feel sorry for our children -- as if they're missing out on something.  (Sheesh! Puh-lease.)  We just prefer to whoop it up on the Feast of All Saints.

Michelle -- not here -- this is her
on All Saints' Day last year.
(I just wanted to see her face....)

After Mass this morning, we pigged out on pumpkin spice lattes and pumpkin bread.  We took the day off of school and are going to our favorite Chinese buffet as a special treat for lunch.  We were going to take a hike up to the Bridge of Heaven (a highly touted trail on the top of the world here)  -- but we have a couple youngin's who are under the weather, so we'll likely find a good movie to watch this afternoon instead and have a "finger food feast" (wherein we make all our favorite crudites and appetizers and spread them out on a picnic blanket in front of our movie), and angel food cake and strawberries for dessert.  Then, after we pick up Dan at the airport, we'll have our "parade of the saints" event, where the children, dressed as the most obscure saint they could find, recite their "clue speeches" and try to stump Daddy and Dominic.  (Can't stump me, though; I corrected their speeches as part of their English and penmanship assignments yesterday, so I'm the only one who knows who everybody is... heh heh heh...)

We hope everyone had a safe and fun Boo-Day yesterday, but its being a mere prelude to today's real feast, I'll skip the Halloween greetings (because it makes no sense, for instance to say "Happy Christmas Eve! Or Happy Day Before Easter!)...  But we would like to wish everyone, far and near, a

Very Happy Feast of All Saints!  

May the prayers of all those who see the Face of our Father in Heaven cascade down upon us all!

Let the party begin!

*  If anyone is really interested on our opinion and reasons behind our opting-out-of-Halloween decision, you can read all about it (ad nauseum) here.  I think I've written a post about it just about every year since I first started blogging -- that was way back in 2006-2007....  Not like its a cause or anything.  Just one of those things that you can't help but need to address if you're one of very few families not  posting pictures of your kids' pumpkins full of candy today.  :0)

* Stay tuned for the Feast of All Souls tomorrow!