An All Saints Day Adventure

This year I really wanted to find a way to help me children have extra fun in celebrating All Saints Day.  I puzzled a bit about what to do and before I knew it the day was upon us.  When I came home at 5pm that night I threw together a quick "All Saints Day Adventure" that was not only fun but also helped reinforce how we can all be Saints. 

 

Step 1:  Dress up your kids like Saints! 

It is not every day that you get to parade your kids around the store in a costume and a Saint makes it even more fun.  My kids choose Blessed Mother Mary and Padre Pio for their costumes.  I used a blue pillow case for my daughter's costume, just cutting a hold at the top for her head and a pillow case for her veil.  For my son we put a brown wrap that I had on him and added a stigmata to his hands.  They loved the costumes!

 

Step 2:  Go to the store and buy your "Adventure" Goodies. 

We had three Saintly Missions "Feed the Poor & Cloth the Naked", "Love Others" and "Take Care of Animals".  We stopped at the local store in our costumes and picked up Cat Food, Canned Goods, Mittens and Candy.  We had lots of smiles and probably created a stir by taking our kids in costume to the store, it was fun!

 

Step 3:  Jump in the Car and carry out your Mission to be a Saint!

 

Mission #1 "Love Others"

We read a short story about Saint Bernadette who spent her life praying for others and suffered greatly during her short life.  We talked about how loving she was by taking time to "Love Others" through sacrifice and prayer.  Since my children love candy we talked about how we could eat the candy we bought ourselves or we could share it with others and pray for them.  Luckily they choose to share and we dropped off the candies with a small prayer card about St. Bernadette at the local Convent.  My kids had colds so they couldn't see the Sisters, since they are mostly elderly, but they were so excited to see where the Sister's lived and prayed for us and the world.

 

Mission #2 "Take Care of Animals"

 

We read a short story about St. Francis, one of their favorite Saints and then headed to the local pet shelter.  The Pet Shelter was quite surprised to see our little Saints and were very happy to have the Cat food.  We left a little St. Francis card with them and had many smiles as we left. 

 

 

 

Mission #3 "Feed the Poor and Cloth the Naked"

We read a short story about Saint Teresa and discussed why we need to be like Jesus by taking care of others.  We took our food and mittens to a local shelter where the kids helped carry in all the goodies.  It was so late we didn't get a picture but it was very special as you can tell by the dancing Saints below.

 

 

 

 

 

By the time we finished up our Missions it was quite late and our kids fell asleep in the car.  My favorite part of the whole mission was that my son loved being Padre Pio so much that he dressed as him the next 3 days!!!!  He even requested that I touch up his stigmata every time he washed his hands.

 

With a little more time and thought I am sure anyone could make this an even more exciting and Saint-filled adventure, but for a quick 5pm idea on a Friday night I am happy with the results!