Our Lady of Guadalupe

Today is the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. To celebrate, we attended Mass, gave Father a bag full of the girl's haystack cookies, and then made luminarios and St. Juan Diego's tilma.

We recently read the book Night of Las Posadas by Tomie Depaolo. (You can find this book at tomie.com) The word "posadas" means inn. This book is a wonderful story that tells about the Mexican tradition where a couple portraying Joseph and Mary pass through the streets looking for a place to spend the night. In Mexico they do this for nine nights in a row. Only on the last night do the couple find a place to stay. Part of the tradition includes little luminarios that line the road way marking where the couple will go. This is where I got the idea to make the luminarios for today's feast day. I thought they might also be a good way to remind the kids that we are preparing for the light of the world (Jesus) this Advent season.

Since the younger girls couldn't be trusted with the hammers and ice picks, they did the tilma craft which mostly involved coloring, cutting, and gluing. Before our craft we read again about St. Juan and Our Lady's apparition to him in Mexico in 1531.