A Day of Celebrations 97/365

Today was Palm Sunday. I have loved Palm Sunday since I was a little girl. One year my mom bought me two new dresses right before Easter. I saved the fanciest one for Easter and wore the pail blue one on Palm Sunday.   I was part of a dance performance at church  and the dress had a full skirt that made turning and twirling extra fun.

Growing up in a protestant church means that Palm Sunday is a Sunday of joyful songs full of "Hosannas" and sometimes even waving of palm branches.  It made for a very fun church service.

Since we have been going to a Catholic Church recently I was very excited to see what the service would be like.  It was very different from any other Palm Sunday service I've been to but it was very fun.

At the door they gave us palm leaves and then after everyone was quietly seating the Priest told us that we were all going to go outside for the blessing of the palms and for the procession into the church.

Outside the Priest blessed the palms and sprinkled us all with holy water and then prayed and read the bible.  And then the whole congregation marched into the church whole the choir lead us singing.

The blessing of the palms

Baby was very somber

The service was very different from any other Palm Sunday service I've been to. It was very reverent and a little somber. It was also different from all the other Masses we've been to. There was no homily (mini sermon) but instead the whole congregation stood for a long reading from the Bible.  There were also several more kneeling and standing times than usual and a few different responsive readings. I really loved the service. It made me think about Palm Sunday and the up coming passion week in a new way.

After the service we were all allowed to take our palms home. Everyone keeps them until next year. Just before Ash Wednesday every one brings them back to church and they are burned to make the ashes that are put on the forehead.

We put our palms in a vase for safe keeping till next year

The rest of our day was spent out side enjoying the wonderful spring weather.

William and Baby work in the garden

On top of being Palm Sunday it was also the night that Upstairs Downstairs was on TV, on PBS.  I really love British dramas and I've been totally excited about this show. Especially since I loved Downton Abby much but the next season won't be released till next fall.

To celebrate this fun show we decided to have a tea party. We made cucumber sandwiches, egg salad sandwiches, and salmon and cream cheese sandwiches. All Gluten Free of course. We also made Earl Grey tea, decaf of course... it's and evening show.

We enjoyed our wonderful tea time dinner and then enjoyed watching our British TV show.  We even had ginger snap cookies with our tea, which of course we called biscuits since it was a British themed evening.

The whole day was absolutely perfect.