Phew ! I finally finished organizing our liturgical year into monthly baskets for neat storage and easy access, so I'm not having to look all over creation to find what I'm looking for. I got this great idea from Charlotte at Waltzing Matilda.
I used medium- and large-size clear plastic storage baskets that I found at WalMart for $4.64 and $6.00 each. I initially thought of buying the shoe-box-sized boxes that are decorated with pretty fabric patterns -- Michael's and Hobby Lobby sell them -- but I realized they would not be large enough. Here's a look at some of our monthly baskets.
The December basket holds the Advent calendar, a beeswax advent candles craft, some felt nativity stickers, an Our Lady of Guadalupe cutout and color craft, a Jesse Tree craft, a miniature nativity, and a statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe (December 12) and St. Juan Diego (December 9). These will get us started as Advent begins, before we go to the basement to bring up the remainder of our Advent and Christmas decorations.
Our Febraury basket has a statue of Our Lady of Lourdes and little St. Bernadette for the February feast day (February 11), and some St. Valentine's Day decorations.
Here is my March basket. St. Patrick's Day is big in our house so I used a large basket for this month to hold the decorations. In the basket I also have a plaque of the Annunciation (March 25) and The Garden of the Good Shepherd calendar and sticker book which I got last week (we're exctited to use this next year). I have to put our St. Patrick storybook by Tomie DePaola in the basket too.
I used a large basket for April, because that has our Easter decorations. We'll move them to the March basket when Easter falls in March (but that won't be until 2013). In our April basket I also have some St. George coloring pages, a St. George statue (April 23), and a Passion Play cut out craft for Holy Week.
The May basket we've already delved into this year, but still inside the basket are the Holy Trinity statue (for Trinity Sunday May 30), and, for the Mary month of May, an Our Lady in the Grotto craft, some Mary bookmarks to color, and some Our Lady trading cards to color.
The June basket has statues of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (June 11) and the Immaculate Heart of Mary (June 12). We'll have Jesus displayed all month as June is dedicated to His Sacred Heart.
The September basket has statues of Archangels Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael (September 29).
Our October basket has statues of St. Therese (October 1), a Guardian Angel watching over a little girl (October 2), and St. Francis of Assisi (October 4), a framed print of St. Therese to display for her feast day, a St. Therese the Little Way cut out wall hanging/craft, some Fall decorations in the manilla envelope, and the ghosties Flower and I made last year for the front yard.
Here's the finished closet.
I could not have done this without locking myself in the room the help of my trusty assistant.
I'd be interested in reading what others have in their liturgical baskets.
