Oh I have had a great time learning about snoods, scarves, and wimples. I was looking into what sort of fun bride related sewing or hope chest project I could have on hand for Melody for Day of Delight this weekend and discovered these. Melody has mentioned several times that she would like something else to do with her hair. She loves it long, it is all the way down to midcalf when it is not braided, but she is tiring of just having braid options to change things up with. These little headpieces look perfect to work with this weekend. In addition they tie in with the Jewish bride theme because they are so much like what a bride would have worn. An extra bonus is that I can pick up locally what she will need to make them. Now, if our sewing or crocheting skills are up to them. What fun!

Here are my research links:

Scarves:

• Two sites that tell how to tie them site 1,  site 2
• Scarves can be bought here, but for now I just need ideas.

Snoods:

• http://hairthings.com/snoods/snoods1.htm
• http://headcoverings-by-devorah.com/Headcoverings_Snoods.html
• http://www.hairboutique.com/tips/tip199.htm
• http://www.reddawn.net/costume/snood.htm
• http://www.sewmodestclothing.com/snood.shtml
• http://www.crochetnbeads.com/files/Snood.pdf
• http://www.delongswords.com/maidensfaire/snood.html
• http://proudmommy.tripod.com/snood.html

Wimples: These go anywhere from looking like pretty, overgrown cowl neck sweaters to nuns habits. LOL. I think the ones that look like cowl necks that you can wear on the neck or over the head are pretty.

• http://jnjknitwits.com/MTC/LWK.htm
• http://cdevine.typepad.com/photos/lace_work/qpwimplel.html
• http://www.goosepond.com/lace/
• http://www.revivalclothing.com/catpages/cat_wimple.htm
• http://www.worldofhats.com/wimple.htm

When you look at this picture of her from the Christmas play, maybe you can see why I think she will be lovely in some of these headwear items.

OK, now I am needing to balance all this girl view of the theme with some boy stuff. LOL. I can't wait to see what I find for them to enjoy!

Tomorrow is grocery day, so many decisions about our Day of Delight need to be getting settled so I know what I will be needing to buy for the meal, object lesson, and dessert.

I have been noticing my wedding gown on the top shelf of the closet since yesterday and learning that the candle lighting at the beginning of Shabbat in the Jewish custom has links to the expectation of the bride and that the Sabbath is seen as the Bride has all given me a direction for our Day of Delight - Bride, Bridegroom, and Wedding.

I know a little bit about how the Church is Christ's Bride, He is the Bridegroom, and just enough about Jewish customs related to marriage to know that this should be a very interesting theme for us.

First, I need to learn more, so research is in order. Here are some resource links that I found helpful:

• Jewish Marriage Customs Bible Study - The marriage customs of Biblical times Jewish marriage customs are first summarized. Then the author draws parallels between the customs and Christ as the Bridegroom and the Church as the Bride.
• Messiah Wedding - I like the way this author organized information - in a chart.
• Behold the Bridegroom Comes - Another good site for information
• What is in a bridal trouseau/Hope Chest? Potential future brides and moms of brides some day that never had this tradition want to know - Doorposts resource, The Hope Chest - great site with several links too!, History - short listing on this page see additional links along the side to learn more on this page, Sweet page from a gal who made one and wishes other young ladies the same joy,  You can buy a book on preparing the hope chest here, hope chest book and simple project you can buy here

OK, now to brainstorm some ideas for Saturday and Sunday:

• OK since the candle is a significant symbol of the begining of the Sabbath celebration and also has strong symbolism to waiting for the bride, the candle chosing and lighting of it will be significant for this Day of Delight. On my errand/shopping list I will make note of looking for a candle that will be significant for this purpose. Initial thoughts - maybe a white one for the color of the brides purity, maybe two of them to represent the bride's purity and the groom (Christ's) light, I may go with the favorites of the floating candles because that adds in the significance of water. I will just have to see when I get to the store.
• OK, how about dessert. Since the theme is wedding, how about a cake? When I asked for dessert suggestions last night, the only one who had a strong leaning was Tim and he took no time at all to shout out 'Cake!' Sounds like cake it will be. I can use the cake server that John and I had at our wedding and we can all do the giving each other the first bite of cake ritual common in weddings. That will be fun. John was such a comedian when he gave me my bite at our wedding - need I say more?
• The Meal. I found no hints of particular dishes mentioned for the wedding feasts in my research. From the Bible I know wine was served. No wine here thank you, but I could serve grape juice. I guess for the food part I am pretty well open to anything that strikes my fancy so long as it is feastlike.
• Hmmm. I think for individual quiet-time projects for Late Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon it would be nice to have some small sewing projects that Melody can pursue for starting her hope chest - I will check for internet ideas before shopping in hopes of finding free projects.
• Maybe some sort of woodworking project for the boys and John to parallel how the bridegroom goes to prepare/build a place for his bride. I will leave this area up to John's leading since he knows what wood we might have free for that pursuit and how energetic he might feel to lead it or when the timing might be.
• I want to emphasis how the bride must be ready at all times for the arrival of the bridegroom because she doesn't know what hour of the day he will arrive - though it is usually night. I think that I will set my wedding dress out in a nice quiet place in the house and encourage the kids to think of it as a reminder to always have our souls ready for the appearing of Christ. I will encourage them that if they suddenly become aware of commiting a sin during the day to go to where the wedding dress is and ask for forgiveness of God so that their hearts are always ready. It would be nice to add that in to the bedtime routine, reminding the children how the groom often came at night and that even then the bride had her wedding gown ready. This will help those that might not have thought to examine themselves for sin during the day the reminder to do so at least now.

My mind will be occupied with brainstoprming even more during the day. I will post more as I have enough ideas gathered to record them here. I also want to locate, design pages for, and print out key Scripture to have up around the house related to our Day of Delight. I will try to post these if anyone wants to use them.

It seems to be a move of God. When John got home he started taliking about how someone at work at asked him why we Christians celebrate the Sabbath on Sunday instead of Saturday. He felt bad in that he didn't know the Scripture to refer to, but he was going to reserach it for the fellow. I smiled broadly as I told him how I was wanting to talk to him about doing Day of Delight Sabbath Keeping again as a family and how someone had posted that lots of moms here at Homeschoolblogger were feeling like they were being moved to do it to. Then even Greg, who was listening in, said that he too had been thinking about it foe the last two days but hadn't said anything. Isn't it neat when you feel that God is working something in the hearts of people all at once. :0)

I knew that lots of moms wouldn't be able to get a hold of the resources that I had mentioned in the previous post, so I thought I would do a bit of internet research for some free resources. There are a LOT of resources out there that are Seventh Day Adventist. Sabbath keeping must be a key issue with this denomination for them to have such an emphasis. That may not be your denomination, but most of the resources seem to be denominationally neutral. You may want to personally preview the material to decide what you want to use and what you do not. I also specifically sought out several Jewish resources. I am always curious to learn more about Jewish customs. It helps me to understand the Bible better. Here is what I found:

For adults and teens -

• Sabbath Keeping: Reviving a Christian Practice: I very much enjoyed this article on Sabbath. It weilds together a glimpse of the history of sabbath-keeping
• Sabbath Day Keeping:  I like this one because it uses a lot of scripture.
• Ideas for family activities can be found here
• Sabbath candles hold a significance for this busy fellow.
• Responses to an e-mail requesting people to share what they did in their families to celebrate the Sabbath. Page down to get to the responses if you are in a hurry.
• How the Orrs celebrate the Sabbath rest
• If you like to hear about what reserach studies have to say about Sabbath keeping look here. Don't miss this one!

For children -

• Patch the Pirate activity website
• Making Sunday Special
• Sabbath
• Torrah Tots Shabbat. This is a Jewish site about Sabbath specifically designed for children. It is best for elementary and up because reading is needed to take in the information. Moms and Dads will find this a really enjoyable resource to learn about Jewish Sabbath. It has been my favorite resource so far explaining the candle lighting ceremony that marks the beginning of Sabbat. Really neat!
• Really fun collection of Jonah and the Whale object lessons and activities.
• Lots of stories in audio files format to listen to here. You will have to go through the resources a bit because children's stories, children's sermons, and adult level studies are all mixed together. This is specifically a Seventh Day Adventist site, there may be doctrinal teachings in the material that you will want to sort through before you offer it to your children to be sure that you are comfortable with it.
• Coloring pages with Biblical themes
•  

I will post more as I come across material online.

I read an entry by mommasheperd and it got me wanting to get back to doing something that we used to do many years ago. It was so fun and the special closeness we all felt when we did it was incredible. We began doing it when we did the Honor unit in Konos and continued long after the unit was done. We prepared for and celebrated Sunday/Sabbath each week. It became a weekly holiday (holyday) that we looked forward to all week long. I am long ago rusty on how to efficiently put these together and I may have to remember how to do them as I go along. But, I figure that if you want to do these Days of Delight too, we can get up to speed together. I am going to post what we are doing and you are welcome to use it as a model or copy the ideas and steps to do them with your own family.

Here are the basics. The Day of Delight begins at sundown on Saturday and goes through sundown on Sunday - during high summer sometimes we would begin a bit before sundown since the sun goes down so late. Sundown marking the beginning of honoring Sunday parallels the Jewish Sabbath pattern except the focal day is Sunday not Saturday. By having the Day of Delight begin at sundown on Saturday, you still have plenty of time to get Saturday chores and errands in there and still encourage yourself to shift gears for the day of worship to come.

For us, I prepared the meal during the busy pre-sundown time of Saturday while the rest of the family prepared for Sunday (baths, making sure cloths were ready, etc). I specifically planned the meal to have plenty of leftovers for Sunday so I wouldn't have to do anything more than a simple reheat and serve on Sunday. It was also the only meal of the week in which I made special desserts - these are served after the family Bible Object Lesson Study after dinner.

Another difference between this meal and an ordinary weekly meals is the table setting and music. During the week the table is rather plain and we do not play music in the background. Not so for this meal. To mark the distinctiveness of the sundown begining, it was the only meal all week in which we lit candles. We all really love those little flower candles that you float in water in a bowl. With little ones about, these can be a bit safer too. These would be the table centerpiece. Since the meal was a special weekly celebration of God and His holy day, it made sense that it would have light at the center. It always set such a cozy and holy atmosphere to have other lights down low and the candles lighting our faces. The music is worshipful, peacful, and gentle in the background. In choosing a title, just rememer the mood and tone you want your children to have during the meal and play the one that will harmonize with it. We enjoy nature sounds music such as Woodwinds and Water by Nature Quest, Looking Into the Light by Joanna (Be Thou My Vision and I Ask No Dream always makes me cry - my eyes are stinging just typing in the titles), and Come to the Quiet by John Michael Talbot.

After dinner everyone would participate in the dinner cleanup. It goes so much faster with many hands. Sometimes we used really fancy disposable plates instead of the good china (our blue glass dishes) just to make cleanup easier and faster. Once everything was cleared, we would all gather around for the family Bible study. Don't get the idea of long monologues and bored kids here. No these were quite lively with object lessons and much conversation. These always seemed to stick with them long term. I will post ideas for these in entries to come. After the Bible study is when desert would be served. In the winter months when evenings are long enough to allow it, the day would close with family board games.

Sunday after church we reheat leftovers and use disposable plates. Having a nice selection of Christ oriented entertainments is such a blessing. Read a biography aloud together while the kids play board games or make crafts. Watch a Christian movie together, bring out the Sunday Toy trunk (special toys reserved only for Sunday play). Play more Christian music.

This is a good overview to give you an idea of what a Day of Delight can be. I am determined to do these again with my family and will post throughout the week things to assist you in doing them with your family too. Here are some additional resources that I found helpful that you can look up if you want to run ahead of me and jump in with two feet. This is a good time to explore the Jewish roots to Western Christianity too. You will be awed when you come to understand how the Jewish feasts symbolize Christ.

• A Day of Delight: Making Sunday the Best Day of the Week by Pam Forster (Doorposts)
• KONOS Curriculum. I am not sure which volume HONOR is from since I have long ago debound the units. You should be able to find it at the KONOS website.
• The Hebrew Roots of our faith studies are useful for older kids to do during the week and on Sundays. resources for that: Far Above Rubies Unit 1, Our Father Abraham (there is a 12 week study guide available too), The Seven Festivals of the Messiah)
• Jewish Holiday crafts for Little Hands
• All about Jewish Holidays and Customs (for children). There are many other books about the feasts.
• Have lots of Christian biographies (books and videos) available for perusal for Saturday evening and Sunday. Preview these before giving to young children as sometimes they can be very sad if there is martyrdom. Here are a few to get you started:  Sheffey (Bob Jones University Video Production), The Hiding Place (the book is MUCH better than the movie and makes for a great read aloud) and any books by Corrie Ten Boom, My Glimpse of Eternity (book), The Sound of Music (video) and any of the books authored by Maria Von Trapp, Through Gates of Splendor, etc.