How to Use My Guide: The Recipe and Event Pages

Over the next few blog posts, I'll explain to you how I am using the pages in my Family Lenten Master Plan Guide, and include some ideas for you to use in your home during Lent.    You can find the entire guide to download here:

A Planning Guide For Lent

Lent is such a long season, that sometimes I find a great idea or recipe to do, or hear about an event we want to attend, but then when the time comes to do them or attend things, I've forgotten all about them!  That's where these pages are useful.  You can keep everything organized in one convenient place, write things down as you find out about them, and they will be there when you are ready!

 

The recipe page has space for you to write in the recipe, the ingredient list so that you can easily go shopping, and the date you wish to make the food.  If you have more recipes, simply print out extra sheets.  I find in my case that, unless it's a new recipe, writing the name, date and ingredients down here is enough for me, as I keep my recipes in a notebook and will just pull that out when I'm ready to cook.  Keeping the ingredients and the date I want to make things with the kids is very helpful, because my shopping list is ready made and I have already made space on our calendar.  

Our pretzels from 2013 ready to go in the oven!

There are many recipes that are traditional to the Lenten season, and you can find many of them on the wonderful blog, Catholic Cuisine.  This blog will give you both recipes and the association that the dish has with our faith.  Some quick ideas to start you off.

Pretzels:  Pretzels were traditionally only eaten during Lent, at a time when the Lenten fast included abstaining from meat, eggs and dairy for the entire season.  Pretzels were a simple food of flour, water, and yeast.  Their shape comes from the way in which people used to pray, with their arms crossed and hands brought up to their shoulders.

Hot Cross Buns:  These are a traditional Good Friday food, as they are simple and make only a small meal.  If you purchase yours (which I often do) they will probably have frosting on them, and the inevitable question is why, especially on Good Friday?  The cross on the buns traditionally was imprinted and then baked into the bread, although it's common for frosted crosses to be added today.  If we end up with frosted ones, I like to think that the little touch of frosting, especially on Good Friday, remind us that Jesus' suffering and death on the cross gave us the sweetness of Heaven.  I tell my children that the frosting reminds us that Good Friday is not the end of the story.  

The event pages are also to help you remember when and where you want to do certain things during Lent.  Hopefully, there are events in your parish that you will be able to attend for Lent.  You have space on the sheet to write down the name of the event and the date, as well as notes for anything you might need to bring.

There is also a sheet for other events, or things that you want to do at home with your family.  As with the recipes, you can always print more sheets if there is more that you wish to do!  (A word of caution, though, if you've filled out every sheet in the packet, you might want to pare down so that you don't make yourself crazy.  Try to incorporate a few simple things that you do every year, and then add one or two new ones the following year.  Simple works really well for Lent!)

Some ideas of things to do:

A bean jar:  My kids love this one, and now insist on doing it every year.  Take a clear jar and bowl and place them in an accessible area of your home.  Fill the bowl with beans, big beans.  One year we had the tiniest beans and my husband and I were pouring handfuls in it by the end of Lent!  Lima beans work well.  For every good deed or sacrifice your children do, let them put a bean in the jar.  On Easter morning, the beans are replaced with jelly beans.

A sensory tub:  For little ones

A Shamrock:  In honor of St. Patrick's 

A Popsicle Square:  In honor of St. Joseph

Have a blessed Lent,

Carolyn

How to Use My Guide: Sacrifices During Lent

Over the next few blog posts, I'll explain to you how I am using the pages in my Family Lenten Master Plan Guide, and include some ideas for you to use in your home during Lent.    You can find the entire guide to download here:

A Planning Guide For Lent

The first page is a list that you can write in what every family member is giving up/doing extra for Lent.  You can also write in a sacrifice for the whole family.  Some good sacrifices, to be chosen by one person or everyone in the household:  Give up candy, tv, FB, the computer, dessert, video games, a favorite food, (in our house it would be pizza!) or favorite drink (around here, that's hot chocolate!)  Extra things to do during Lent:  Pray more, learn new prayers or scripture, read the Bible or other faith-filled books, practice listening to your parents or children, talk more quietly, go to church more often, do something nice for someone every day, and practice being patient in the grocery store, in the car, etc.

The trick here is that it should really apply to your family.  Giving up candy if you rarely eat it isn't really a sacrifice.  It's also not a sacrifice if you're doing it to curtail the cavities or lose the extra 5 lbs.  It needs to be something that, every time you can't do it, it is a reminder that it's Lent.  It needs to be something that draws you closer to the cross and the sacrifice that Jesus made.  Many times, people will give up a favorite activity and replace it with prayer, extra time to spend strengthening the family's faith, or religious reading.  They are 'making room' in their schedules for more time with Jesus.  Some years we give things up and replaced them with other things, some years we try to do more, and this year my family has chosen individual sacrifices.

We have also sacrificed a different thing each day.  This works well if your children are young and sacrificing throughout all of Lent would be impossible.  One year, my children decided to give up tv, candy, and the computer, but each one was given up on 2 days each week.  For example, Monday and Thursday they chose to not watch tv, Tuesday and Friday no candy, and no computer on Wednesdays and Saturdays.  This way, they had a sacrifice every day, but it was more manageable for them because it wasn't the same thing for the entire season.

 I also liked that this helped them really focus on the reason behind giving these things up, which is that we try especially hard during Lent to become more like Jesus, and to appreciate all that He gave for us.  The variety helped them think about why some of their sacrifices were harder than others, and how with life's ups and downs, it is sometimes easier or harder to follow Christ!

One last thing about sacrifices and doing something extra.  I truly believe that these should be optional.  Keep in mind, there's no church law on having to give something up, so it's okay if you or your kids choose not to do this.  I think if you explain the reasoning behind these practices, your children will likely want to participate to one degree or another.  However they choose to observe Lent is up to them.  I try to give my kids a variety of opportunities, and each one usually chooses to do things slightly differently.  Observing Lent is not optional in our house, but how it is observed is up to each family member.

Have a Blessed Lent,
Carolyn

A Planning Guide for Lent!

It happens to me every Lent.  I find all these great ideas that I want to do with our family, and then I get so overwhelmed that I never get organized enough to do them!  This year, I decided to organize everything so that I can keep it all in one folder, and it will be ready to go when I need it.  I looked online and couldn't find anything, so I made my own, and now I'm sharing it with you!  This guide contains several different types of pages, so you can use all of them, or just pick the ones that will work for your family.  The guide is free for you to download here.  You have my permission to use it for non-profit church, homeschool, school, religious education or family use.  Please include the copyright info. when you print.  You may not post the guide anywhere on the internet.  Please instead link back to this post.

Have a Blessed Lent,
Carolyn