One of the Moms in our homeschool group began a program last year for the kids in 6th, 7th and 8th grade to get together once a month for dinner at one of their homes with our dear parochial vicar. The hosting family serves dinner for all the kids and a few parents,also.
She organized this because it seemed that the High Schoolers had their own group and the young kids also had clubs in our homeschool group. She wanted to set something up for this "Tween " group to get together and spend time with each other and with our priest and a few parents in a fun setting.
This club has been a great success. They have had some nice homemade dinners served by the families who have hosted. We decided to let the hosting family do all the preparation when it was their turn, so that no one has to bring anything except a great attitude! Sometimes that's enough with this age group!
When it was time for me to take my turn, instead of dinner, I chose to serve dessert! I combined this with a kickball game and a bonfire! The evening turned out to well attended with about 18 kids and 8 parents here for a Sunday evening. It is always a great honor to have a priest visit one's home. It certainly was a pleasure to be able to interact with him as a person and as a friend.
I figured that all these kids would be right in the middle of their growth spurts and served watermelon and bottled water on ice immediately after the kickball game.The exercise was a great ice breaker for the evening. Although most of these kids know each other, we were able to welcome some new faces.
It occurred to me as we cleaned the yard for our guests, that since we are blessed to have an Outdoor Stations of the Cross, there should be no reason why these young Catholics couldn't take a turn around it during the course of the evening! Fr. D. couldn't join us on Holy Saturday morning when we do this as a group, and I thought that he might enjoy it as well. I hadn't mentioned this in my invitation for the evening however and I didn't want the kids to feel tricked into "praying" when they had been invited here to have fun.I can honestly say that we all had a blast with it because we kept it simple and went VERY fast through it.At each station Fr. D. prayed " We adore you O Christ and we praise you." We all genuflected and responded " Because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the World." It turned out to be prayer with more exercise and what could be better!
While we were doing the Stations, two of the Moms were scooping ice cream and adding toppings.The kids were able to come around the corner, grab a bowl of ice cream and head down to the bonfire.During the kickball game Larry had fired it up and allowed it to burn down to a safer level.
I did take a few minutes to remind the kids from the get-go that this very wide fire was a killer and that there was absolutely no room for any foolishness around it. One girl said that now she was scared! I hated to be a kill joy which I tend to be good at but at the same time I figured that it had to be said. "A word to the wise is sufficient". By God's Grace no one got hurt throughout the evening.
We had marshmallows around the fire with long sticks that Larry had prepared. I opted not to serve s'mores because everyone had already had ice cream.Then the kids surprised me- they watched the fire for a short while but then started a large running game of Cops and Robbers as it began to get dark! This was spontaneous and not part of my plan!!!!As more parents arrived we had fun chatting with Fr. D. around the fire.Fr. D. used to be the chaplain for a fire and rescue company and he has a real heart for emergency workers whom we pray for at each of his Masses.
I will say that we all worked hard to prepare the house and yard for our company and wound up having a whole lot of fun. My dear friend gave us a beautiful compliment during the evening stating that if only we had a made a leather wallet, she would have felt like we had all gone to camp! The funny thing about that is that I had been at her house in town the night before and had a most enjoyable evening celebrating her daughter"s homeschool graduation.That shows me that if we all share what we have, we all have a richer life. I look forward to many more of these gatherings with our middle schoolers and Fr. D who is a great guy and who enjoys an evening out with friends as much as the rest of us do.
