I grew up in a celebrating family. My mom isn’t a classic birthday party kind of thrower, but she celebrates life and the people she loves well and often through the year. Her love for celebrating and beauty was given to her by her mother, and she gave it me.
This week she invited all her grandchildren over for a new ornament making tradition. Some of the littlest had their hands and feet imprinted in salt dough to dry, and all of the grandkids got a photo of themselves on their own ornament.
The kids aren’t old enough yet to be interested in making their own ornaments, so the mommies made them for them.
The ones I made for my children look like they were done by a fourth grader, perhaps even a kindergartener, but I love embracing this part of motherhood, even if I am not a great arts & crafts kind of person.
I love embracing traditions, and seasons of change with my boys, marking the time because time seems to be so especially fleeting now that I’m a mother.
In early October, I purchased the book “Sacred Seasons: A Family Guide to Center Your Year Around Jesus”
I’m excited about it because I’ve wanted to start infusing more historical Christian traditions into our year.
Matthias and I didn’t grow up with any very specific traditions outside of Easter and Christmas, but we would like to celebrate a little more throughout the year —or maybe I say we, but it’s really me that has the desire, and Matthias is just happy to be along for the ride.
So I’m reading the book, Sacred Seasons, and taking notes on ways we can start celebrating historical Christian holidays in our own ways.
The first that was coming up after I started reading it was All Saints Day and All Souls Day.
I really have never been taught much about Allhallowtide or all Saints and Souls day.
I heard all the classic stuff you hear about Halloween from other people and online, but I’ve never heard the true history and its roots in the Christian tradition.
The week of Halloween I started preparing a feast for my family to come acknowledge and celebrate All Saints and Souls day here with dinner in our private forest at sunset, November 2nd.
We prepared a beautiful long table outdoors with enough seating for about 25 of us.
I spent two days moving furniture and prepping food, picking up tables from my mom, and finding enough chairs for everyone, making the scene beautiful with candles and flowers and glass and crystal.
Annalise helped me lug several wagon loads of furniture through the woods, helped set up tables and chairs, wrapped silverware in my cloth napkins, Kate, Chloe, and Mattie helped with holding babies and taking out food, arranging foraged things in vases, and my littlest sitters put all the chair covers on. It was team work for the dream.
I feel like I kind of did a lot of things the hard way. I am certain we could do it all in less time next year. (And there will definitely be a next year, we want to incorporate it into our family calendar indefinitely.)
Right before sunset my family started arriving.
We lit the candles and served ourselves pot roast, chili, macaroni and cheese, and bread under the green canopy.
It might be November but our trees aren’t bare in this part of Texas yet.
We sat together eating and then drinking, hot chocolate, coffee, and hot cider in the crisp air.
Matthias and I don’t have our home built on our property yet, and this was our first meal to share there, a magical first memory.
The adults sat around the table talking for an hour while the kids played in the woods with flashlights, and at the right time, I pulled out something small I had pulled together for the evening.
I knew I wanted to acknowledge what we were doing and give my family a little history since they didn’t really know why we’re having a feast in the forest at sunset. They’re good sports.
I divided two prepared pages with 14 assigned speaking parts and handed out the papers so most of the adults could read a little out loud about the day and what we were doing there.
I thought it would be more fun to let a lot of people have a small part each, instead of one person doing all of the speaking. After the reading, we sang It Is Not Death to Die and Matthias closed us in prayer, though we ended up staying around even longer with more conversation and songs.
Each week we have family dinner on Thursday nights anyway, but the extra effort and time putting the evening together and sharing that meal with the common purpose of remembering and celebrating our faith, made it remarkable.
Only the warmest hues of light were left as the sun fell behind the trees on our property, and then blue hour set in.
The candles made their transition from pretty things to enjoying looking at, to necessary lighting for looking each other in the eyes.
At the end of the dinner, after helping clean up a bit, a lot of family left. But as I walked up my porch steps, my sisters proposed making a fresh pot of coffee and putting cookies in the oven to warm those who wanted to stay as we entered an even more relaxed couple of hours together.
Steven, Alexis, Grey, Sydnie, Ethan, Hannah Joy, and all 10 nieces and nephews stayed until nearly midnight in our home.
There are parts of our life right now that I struggle to be grateful for, but the relationships I have with family is not one of those.
I’m going to share now what we read together that night at dinner. These words were not written by me, rather they’re bits and pieces collected from different sources online for the 14 different speaking parts.
(It’s less magic only spoken in my voice, but at least you’ll get to know the reason we gathered.)
Introduction, Matthias:
We have come here tonight to remember the faithful departed, to renew our trust and confidence in Christ, and to pray that together we may be one in him, through whom we offer our praises to the Father.
We are feasting tonight in celebration of those who have gone before us and are united with Christ.
This celebration is a reminder that death, in Christ, is not a thing to fear or ignore and that those saved by faith will be raised again in their physical bodies one day.
Madeleine:
The practice of “memento mori,” which means, “remember you will die,” is a reminder that one day this life will end and we will stand in judgment before God. Each and every one of us here tonight will.
Ethan:
Keeping death before our eyes inspires us to live well, for God and others, and to share the hope we have that death is not eternal if you are in Jesus.
Grey:
For those who are new to this subject of "memento mori" perhaps a brief comment is in order. Memento mori are intended to be reminders of our own mortality. The purpose of remembering our mortality is first and foremost to remind us to give consideration to the state of our soul. Secondarily it is a reminder to be thankful and not lost in grief for those who have gone before us into eternity with God. In other words, it is not a "celebration of death" -- it is acknowledgement of it and remembrance of eternity.
Sam H:
The idea is that it is important that we remember our own mortality, and that of those we love, so that we can live each day preparing our souls to meet God and face our particular judgement, and helping those around us be ready to face theirs.
Dad:
1 Corinthians 15:51-57
Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— 52 in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53 For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. 54 When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true:
“Death has been swallowed up in victory.”
“Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?”[
56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Mom:
Psalm 116:15, “Precious in the eyes of the Lord are the death of his saints.”
Is that not an incredible statement? How can death be “precious”? This verse tells us God knows something about death that we cannot understand.
Sam B:
If the death of God’s people are precious in His eyes, then we cannot image the sweet grace that accompanies a believer at the time of their passing.
Alexis:
On December 22, 1899, DL Moody the great pastor and evangelist of Chicago breathed his last breath on this earth. Before he died, his last words were to his son, Will. He said, “If this is death, this is sweet.” To die is not death for a believer. It is our great and glorious transportation to that celestial city whose builder and maker is God
Annalise:
God has also appointed the exact day and time of your death. In Psalm 139, David says to God that “in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them” (Ps. 139:16). Every one of our days, from first to last, has been eternally appointed by God. For that reason, our life and death are entirely subject to God’s will. James tells us: “Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit’—yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring.
Beau:
What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that’ ” (James 4:13–15). James’ point is clear: life is short and transient. We have no ultimate say or control over the length of our days—whether we will be alive tomorrow or not. The end of our days is set by the Lord’s will. We need to live mindful of that reality.
Sydnie:
Hear us, O merciful Father, as we remember in love those we have placed in your hands and help us to live in the light of our own deaths and eternity
Matthias:
The God of peace, who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, make you perfect in every good work to do his will; and the blessing of God almighty, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, be upon you and remain with you always