All Saints Day - the reason for the season!

The Church Triumphant!

This feast day is actually the highest in the three day sequence of holidays that starts with Halloween.  It is a Holy Day of Obligation, so we are obligated to attend Mass on that day.  It is to celebrate the Church Triumphant.  Here's some suggestions for how to celebrate this feast:

• Go to Mass, of course!
• Attend or host an All Saints party for your children - complete with costumes and games (as low waste as possible!)
• Eat your Halloween candy as part of the celebration
• Learn about your patron saint, your confirmation saint, a saint you are curious about by doing a little research.
• Read saint stories out loud to your children or anybody else who lives with you or is willing to listen!
• Have your kids and yourself give an informal presentation on a saint around the dinner table
• Sing a hymn together that is appropriate for this day or listen to hymns.  For All the Saints is a classic!  Or Holy, Holy, Holy!
• Pray the litany of the saints
• Play saints bingo!  (use recycled printer paper!  Print it out once and save it for next year.)

All Saints Day doesn't present the worldliness problems that Halloween has acquired.  That's probably why it gets forgotten in the rush.  But the focus on the spiritual instead of the world is a nice refresher after the more raucous Halloween.  Make it a real focus in your family.  The joy of celebrating the saints is a profound one that makes one contemplate the important things, like eternal life, the meaning of life here on earth,  what it is to be holy and what it is to love and glorify God.