My Sunday Best: Epiphany Edition

Three Kings Day! The Epiphany! Theophany! The Twelfth Night! Little Christmas! 

No matter what you call it, it is indeed a feast that needs to be celebrated in style. It is the night that the Three Kings found the Christ Child lying in a manger beneath the star of Bethlehem. We display of entire Nativity scene on our home altar and light our Christ Candle all day to honor this amazing day.

This was our first Mass of the New Year. We have been fighting some nasty stomach bugs, coughs, ear infections and sore throats over our Christmas break so it was an awesome way to start our Epiphany celebration at Mass. As you can see from the picture above, the boys rocked their new outfits they received for Christmas again. They love their ties, new shoes and the whole ensemble so who am I to say no to kids that want to wear their very best? I on the other hand, did not have my Sunday Best on... I am still not feeling so well so I wore more comfortable clothes: A huge sweater and jeans with nice boots. Therefore, I did not honor this outfit with a picture.

After Faith Formation and Mass I headed straight to the grocery store to get some special Epiphany donuts and the ingredients for our special dinner. If you checkout out my Menu Plan Monday Post from earlier in the week, I had something else listed as our dinner for the Epiphany but I came up with a neat idea that incorporated the Three Kings and the Star of Bethlehem. I made Chicken A La King with Star of Bethlehem Biscuits!

We enjoyed an orange juice toast with some yummy donuts before throwing together dinner in the crock pot and enjoying a Family Epiphany nap. When we woke up I got started on those Star of Bethlehem Biscuits! All I did was take a can of Buttermilk biscuits and stretch them out so I could use our Christmas Star cookie cutter to make these festive biscuits for dinner.

Have you ever heard of Chicken a La King? It is similar to a Chicken and Dumplings recipe but instead of dumplings, the Chicken and veggie mixture is served over a puff pastry. I just tweaked the recipe and pour our Chicken and vegetables over biscuits shaped liked stars. Can you see the hiding stars?

After Dinner we did the traditional Chalking of the Door! Have you done it before? If not, it is a great tradition to start with your family! Here is how you do it:

Write the inscription below on your entrance to your home with blessed chalk. The blessings are listed below as well. I wrote the inscription on the doorway while Little Man and Goalie wrote it all over the sidewalk. 

20 + C + M + B + 17

While you write this above your doorway remember to recite:

The three Wise Men, Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar followed the star of God’s Son who became human two thousand and fifteen years ago. May Christ bless our home and remain with us throughout the new year. Amen.

The letters C, M, B have two meanings. They are the initials of the traditional names of the three Magi: Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar. They also abbreviate the Latin words Christus Mansionem Benedicat, “May Christ bless the house.” The “+” signs represent the cross and 17 represents the year. 

To bless the chalk prior to "Chalking the Door" recite the following prayer and sprinkle holy water on the chalk:

Loving God, bless this chalk which you have created, that it may be helpful to your people; and grant that through the invocation of your most Holy Name that we who use it in faith to write upon the door of our home the names of your holy ones Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar, may receive health of body and protection of soul for all who dwell in or visit our home; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

If you did a Chalking of the Door please find me and the Zelie Group on Instagram and share your pictures! It's not to late to do this fun activity with your family... especially if you still have your Christmas decorations still up! Looking for more fun ways to celebrate the Epiphany checkout Seven Activities to Celebrate the Epiphany.

During dinner and our Epiphany activities, we listened to our Christmas music one last time. It was a sad moment when I told the boys I would be putting away the Christmas decor, music and movies. They begged for one last movie so we decided to watch The Little Drummer Boy and snuggled up with some hot chocolate on the couch before we called it a night and headed to bed. How was your Epiphany celebration? Do you take down your decorations? Or do you leave them up until Candlemas? I am sharing this with My Sunday Best.

God Bless!