Lenten Plans

A Crown of Thorns--we'll pull a thorn out for every sacrifice (I hope I have plenty of thorns!) to make Jesus's suffering a little bit less.  It's a similar concept to adding hay to the manger during Advent.  I made the thorns out of the flat type of toothpick with a point on only one end.  I dyed them with some minwax stain we had on hand.  I hope I have enough thorns for all the sacrifices we're going to make!!!

A Calendar that we use to follow the Jesus Tree readings.  We sort of combined the many ideas for a lenten path or calendar with the Jesus Tree, instead of making a tree.  This works just fine for us.

These are the figures we made last year out of foam sheets.  I found them, accidentally, along with our Resurrection Eggs while I was looking for something completely different. God so good to me!  Here it is Ash Wednesday and we still haven't make the calendar, so if you're behind, too, don't feel bad.  Lent is more than 40 days altogether.

A mason jar full of sacrifices the kids can make.  My younger ones still don't like the idea of giving up one thing for 40 days.  This makes it a bit easier in that they can pick a sacrifice each day.  But no double-picking if it says "Don't watch TV today" and it's American Idol night!

Ash Wednesday update:  It seems only Meg will do this.  Pip doesn't seem to need the extra help.  I'll probably do hers with her, though, if I can.  Unless it's someone else's chores---I'm not doing THAT!

They've made me start my sacrifices early by coercing me into baking pretzels with them on a fast day.  They turned out beautifully, but I have no idea how they taste.

Here's to a Blessed and Fruitful Lent, everyone!

God bless!