Candlemas Part II

Things have been a little discombobulated this week, partly because we lost my uncle to cancer last week. I had invited two friends and their children over for our tamale fest, but both of them had to cancel due to unexected school functions. My parish priest and our sacristan intern were also on the guest list, but his mother is not well and he had to cancel too. Good thing tamales freeze well because I'd already ordered two dozen from Casa de Tamale! We had a nice dinner last night with just our little family. I lit every candle we had in the house to create an ultra candle lit meal.
I decided to post pone the Mexican hot chocolate until tea time today. We had 5 little boys in the house to make the candles and then had hot cocoa and cookies for tea. All the boys were rather well behaved given their youth.Formerly Candlemas was the close to the Christmas season on the old church calendar. Because the bleeding from the delivery was deemed unclean, women were to refrain from going to temple for 40 days. Candlemas was the Purification of Mary or the Presentation of Jesus at the temple. How could a nursing baby travel without his mother to go to the temple without her? I usually take the Christmas tree down after Epiphany but I wait until after Candlemas to take down the remainder of the Christmas decorations. I packed away the nativity yesterday, pitched two rather forlorn looking poinsettias, and disassembled the wreaths. I still need to put away all the golden pinecones, but already the mantle is looking quite bare. It is a good look for the austerity of Lent, but I think I'll display all the family photos I have. The upcoming funeral causes me to want to be surrounded by family any way I can.