Today, September 29, is celebrated all over the world as Michaelmas, or the feast of St. Michael. I originally read about this holiday in Mrs.Sharp’s Traditions and we tweaked it a little and made our own tradition. Michaelmas is a holiday honoring when the archangel Michael banished Satan from heaven. Michaelmas is celebrated differently depending on where you live. If you live in the Mills house, it goes something like this…
First, we read Revelation 12:7-12
Here, we read John’s firsthand account of Michael and his army of angels fighting Satan (the dragon) and his angels. Satan was defeated and hurled down to Earth where he spends his days as the accuser of the believers. (But he was filled with fury because he knows his time is short! verse 12) We then talk a bit about the devil, temptation, and his clever evil ways. This time is pretty laid back, I just go with the flow of what seems to be on their minds.
If you’d like to have some scriptures on hand, here are a few:
James 1:13-15
Genesis 3:1-6
Ephesians 6:12-18
Then, we make a tasty dragon of our own
I use canned cinnamon roll dough (with 8 rolls) for this. We roll out 3 pieces into a dragon-ish shape. Top that with dried fruit and add a top layer of 3 more pieces. I then cut one of the remaining 2 pieces into triangles and we make spikes. The last roll we leave as a head and add a raisin eye. We pop him into the fiery pit ( a 375 oven) and await his demise (for about 20 minutes).
Here’s the poor little guy before we cooked him: (You can see my family time book in the corner of the pic!)
It’s no work of art, but it sure is tasty! While we’re waiting for the dragon to cook, we clean up and one of the girls gets ready for our next step…
Donning a white robe, one of the kids gets to play Michael.
Once the dragon is out of the oven, we pour the provided icing on top. Then whoever is playing Michael gets to slay the dragon with a big knife. Supervised, of course. We do our best angel-soldier looking poses while doing this so I can add our memory to our family time book!
Finally, We Eat the Dragon!
Kids around here prefer their dragons with ice cold milk. Mommy likes coffee. This celebration feels like the start of fall to me, so we usually begin brainstorming fall crafts. It must be the smell. Today, we were going to make rag dolls, but instead we got caught up talking about Coco’s upcoming birthday and spent all our craft time at the table doing that instead. Ah, homeschool. Love it.
Myrrh C. says
I had no idea, so thanks for cluing me in. We actually read about Saint Nicholas today (this year’s history is middle ages) so we had kind of a Christmas thing going on but I might to try to incorporate this into our evening somehow–cinnamon rolls for dessert is especially tempting 😀
turtlemomma says
So where did you come up with the idea for the dragon an the whole stabbing thing? This is such a good idea, i might incorporate it in my Halloween party, if we have one this year. Last year we had a party and i wanted to tell the kids a bible story to witness to those who didnt believe.
Jimmie says
Very, very neat and yummy way to celebrate. I’ll have to let Sprite mold the dough next time I make cinnamon rolls.
Carolyn says
That’s a really neat idea! Here’s another scripture that would seem to go well with this occasion: Romans 16:20 — “The God of peace will soon crush Satan underneath your feet. “
Angela says
That is a great verse!
Gina says
Fantastic, we are going to try this at our home education group this week in the UK. It gives story telling, baking and most important, for our ever hungry bunch, eating! Thank you.:-)