Christmas at the Monastery

This year’s Christmas celebrations included old friends, community celebrations, and some very special presents for the nuns.

The refectory creche, decorated with a Dominican shield

As usual, we decorated our monastery so we would be in the Christmas spirit wherever we go.

The community room

Sr. Miriam and Sr. Maria Rosario with the creche in the infirmary

As is our tradition, on Christmas Eve our chaplain came in to the enclosure to bless the creches in the refectory and community room.

Sr. Mary Rose and Fr. Thomas blessing the creche in the community room

On Christmas morning, the Knights of Columbus came and grilled steaks for our Christmas dinner.

Afterwards, we visited with them in the parlor. This is a lovely Christmas tradition that we’ve enjoyed for over 40 years.

This Christmas brought another special guest: Fr. Brian Pierce, O.P. He got his Dominican vocation from the Lufkin nuns while he was a college student in Nacogdoches, and then served as promoter of the Dominican nuns for years.

Fr. Brian Pierce hugs his spiritual mother, Sr. Maria Guadalupe

We were honored to have him and Fr. Carmen Mele, O.P., celebrate Mass with us during their visit.

This Christmas, the nuns also received some special gifts.

Mike and Linda Beaver, great benefactors of the community for years, gave us a new car. We’re very grateful to them and to all of our benefactors who gave us gifts this year.

But it was our chaplain who gave us the most unusual gift: a hoverboard!

Sr. Mary Rose, our courageous prioress, was the first to ride it. She made sure to wear pads and a helmet!

On Epiphany, we had our usual community day of fun and games.

Sr. Mary Pauline and Sr. Maria Cabrini organized the games in the morning. Our two “wise men” made sure the morning was fun for all of us.

We separated into three teams to play Christmas-related games. First, we picked up cups, hoping to reveal a star.

Next, we put paper plates on our heads and tried to draw, blindly, a star with a smiley face. Sr. Maria Guadalupe was the judge and declared all of the pictures lovely.

What would Christmas be without candy canes? The next game was to use a candy cane at the end of a pole to try to fish other candy canes out of bowls.

Sr. Mary Margaret and Sr. Mary Therese race to be the first to fish out all of the candy canes. It was tricky!

Ornaments are also a big part of Christmas, so the next game was to stack cups while keeping an ornament balanced on the top.

Sr. Mary Giuse concentrates to keep the ornament in place.

Another fun game was guessing Christmas carol names. The teams picked cards with pictures on them that illustrated a Christmas carol.

This game was a lot of fun, but we had to think really hard. We not only had to figure out the pictures, but also remember a lot of song titles!

This Christmas season was full of fun, feasting, and community time, both with each other and with friends of the monastery. We love how the holidays bring us all together, and we’re so grateful to everyone who contributed to making this Christmas special.