St. Patrick's and St. Joseph's Feast Day

Our St. Joseph's Altar at home

In the spirit of St. Patrick and St. Joseph - - we had friends over today to celebrate the Feasts of St. Patrick and St. Joseph.  Yes, we are a bit early and we did combine the two feasts, but our schedules get overloaded and while Friday would have been nice since it is in the middle of the two days, it is Lent, which meant that today was the day!  As part of our activities, we set up a St. Joseph's Altar with all of our goodies that were offered.  We included on our altar cookies, cupcakes, Irish soda bread, Fig Newtons, some wine and grape juice, flowers, biscotti, clover rolls, goldfish, swedish fish, and I cannot remember what else.  

Fiona's Altar

In addition to all of the goodies on the altar, we also had mini reubens.  When we make reubens, I usually buy a corned beef brisket and make the brisket.  Then I slice the brisket thinly and use that instead of using corned beef from the deli.  For the mini reubens, I used cocktail rye, and built smaller sandwiches which I then grilled.  They were as tasty as their full-sized counterpart!  The great part is that corned beef brisket is on sale this time of year, so I always try to buy a few to throw in the freezer.  Thanks to our Irish brethren!

For crafts, I made some spada dough (recipe here) and the kids and my friend sculpted different shapes from them, including a monstrance, some St. Joseph's staffs, ladder, lillies and some sort of house thing, my older daughter made (Said that it was built by St. Joseph - go figure!).  We had the two younger girls make 3-D Virtual St. Joseph Altars (link here).  

Jenna's Altar

I asked my daughter, Jenna, why she put St. Joseph on the bottom, rather than the top, to which she replied that he was "humble, and wouldn't have wanted to be on top."  Okay, I will give her that he was humble =). 

We also created a crown of thorns from chocolate and pretzel sticks.  This idea also comes from the above site - - Thanks, Evann!  We have added it to our altar.  She suggests to save it for Easter, and you can put it on your Easter cake as a nest, rather than a crown of thorns - - I am not sure ours will last that long.  I guess that would be great if St. Joseph's feast day was a bit closer to Easter as it has been the past couple of years, but we still have over a month to go!  Perhaps I will put it away in either the refrigerator or freezer, wrapped up nice and tight? 

Crown of Thorns

Lastly, the older two kids made up a game of Catholic Jeopardy (this is an idea from CHC's A Year With God) and included the topics of St. Joseph, St. Patrick, Lent, Stations of the Cross and Mary, which they played with all of the kids.  After we were all done, we sent our friends home with goodies from the altar and a couple of bottles of homemade wine.

All-in-all, it was a fun day with our friends.  Please take time to visit Evann's site - the Virtual St. Joseph's Altar will only be open until March 19th.