Children's day

Yesterday wasn't Mother's Day, here in the UK. We have Mothering Sunday three weeks before Easter.

We chose yesterday, for no particular reason, to have Children's Day.

Why? We wanted to thank God for entrusting us with our children. Obviously, we wanted to pray for them too- not that that is just left to one particular day.

What did we do? We gave each child a book. In fact, this wasn't completely my own idea. My Mother used to give each of her children a book on the Sunday nearest to her wedding anniversary.

Table with the books waiting for the children.

My husband read Psalm 127 and 128 for our family worship.

I had meant to make special food but we were out the previous day and this didn't happen. In fact, we ended up with "shop" pies for dessert which are considered an extra special treat by some. There were some yummy chocolate brownies for tea- thanks to our eldest daughter.

What were the books?

Eldest son aged 17-The real university challenge by Andrew King.

Eldest daughter aged 15-Anne Bradstreet-Poet and Pilgrim by Faith Cook.

Middle son aged 10-African Adventures by D Anderson

Miss Belle aged 4-Stop and look at God's Word by Donna Drion

Mr Exuberance aged 2-Ferdinand the Engine CD by Ann Benton. This is our third copy of Ferdinand and was greeted with much nostalgia by the older children: "I remember how we listened to the tape until it wore out and kept slipping."

Ferdinand is an allegory based around a steam engine, his Inventor and the Manual for Driving Railway Engines. It brings in songs with catechism questions which are memorable but don't always scan. Despite this the children have all enjoyed this-Mr Exuberance was certainly excited about the chuffing.


All the books were brought from Ossett Books.


Would we do Children's Day again-quite possibly. It was a joy to see the children around the breakfast table, with their books, with Ferdinand chuffing in the background!