Gift Idea: A {mini} Feast Table Kit

Our parish was blessed to host a Celebration of Life baby shower for six moms who were expecting a new little one, or who just had a baby. These baby showers are a delight to attend and support because being a mom these days is hard work. And not popular. And what about being a Catholic mom that is open to life? I don’t need to answer that for you, do I?

Many of the moms we were celebrating had at least one little one already and after shopping I found myself frustrated, not able to find the right thing for each of them, although I had no idea what exactly “the right thing” was going to be at that point. I wanted to come up with something a little different. Something that helped each of them take a baby step {pun intended} toward rebuilding culture in their own homes.

What I came up with was something I’m calling a {mini} feast table kit. It’s a very small collection to help a family toward setting up a place in the home for little liturgical displays. And once the idea came to me and I started pulling it together, I was excited…because this is something any of us could do for a gift! Is there a birthday coming up? Baby shower? First Communion? Baptism? Christmas? And you don’t know what to give? Maybe you could consider putting together a little {mini} Feast Table kit to share!

I’ll share my sources and what I put in each of the mom’s mini feast table kit below:

Contents of a mini Feast Table kit:

• Holy cards – I purchased several card sets from Saints Galore and split the different cards between the six kits. The holy cards are particularly nice on the Feast Table! I have used Saints Galore cards on my own feast table for years and find them to be beautiful, large, and a nice heavyweight card stock. They have proven to be durable over the years. I also have several traditional holy card sets – two of my favorite sources for holy card sets are here and here.
• This wooden playing card holder (comes in a set of 4) is perfect for displaying a few holy cards for the month. It stands by itself and is large enough for small hands to work with!
• I chose a picture book to include – so that each family could either begin or add to their liturgical year picture book shelf. You can always find excellent recommendations of liturgical year picture books at Jessica’s blog: Shower of Roses. (That’s where I go!) Choose a few new picture books each season and keep building over the years!
• A Shining Light doll for each kit – I chose Our Lady of Fatima for our kits, but they’re all so sweet. My own Lauren loves the two Shining Light dolls she has and I set them out for various Feasts of Our Lady. No worries about breaking or less-than-gentle loving! These are perfect for kits that are going to homes with littles! Another fantastic option is to purchase a lovely Fontanini figure if you’re gifting – think outside of the Nativity manger! Fontanini makes several figures – each made of durable resin, and each crafted beautifully with attention to detail. I have several of their small statues that I keep in one of the little drawers of my Feast table to bring out for various feasts. They’re certainly durable enough for little toddler hands, but beautiful enough to set out in your home!
• I contained it all in this simple zipper pouch. I love these zipper pouches and use them all over – for containing art supplies, art prints for our art studies, and I use one for each of the twelve months of the year for containing all of my holy cards and liturgical resources for a given month. It keeps my liturgical collections organized so that setting things up each month is a breeze.

• And then I included a simple *what-to-do-with-all-this* printable…which I’m including for you if you’d like to print and use with your own kit. {Click to download and print: Feast Table Mini Kit} If you’re not sure what a Feast Table is, or how to set one up, or what the purpose would be anyway – I’d encourage you to take a look at that! Setting up little liturgical displays anchors our family to the Church’s calendar! {You can read more about our Feast Table here.}

Pictured above and below is my April Feast table; I wanted to show you how functional and simple the card holder is – it’s perfect for a liturgical display on a shelf or table. It stands up by itself, and can hold several cards. The cards pictured below are all 4″ x 6″ heavy cardstock/laminated cards.

I hope you enjoyed this idea for a mini Feast Table kit! Maybe you have a celebration coming up and you can take this idea, build on it and make it even better! I’d love to know about it if you do so I can share with others!

the fine print…

© 2016, Jennifer Mackintosh

Copyright permission is granted to adapt and use this idea for family and/or personal use.

You are welcome to share this idea (I’d love it if you pointed back to this post.)

This idea is not to be used for profit, mass resale, mass distribution, or marketing of this idea. 

NON NOBIS