Bodhi Day at Home Family Kit

Every December your children watch their friends count down to Christmas and ask what their own family has. This year you hang paper bodhi leaves on a small fig plant, read the story of the morning star, and cook milk-rice together on December 8.

A 14-page printable kit for a family that wants a quiet celebration of Bodhi Day (Rōhatsu, December 8) at home, with children about 5 to 9.

Inside: a page for the grown-up that says plainly which Buddhist traditions keep this day (Japanese Zen on December 8, other Mahayana schools on other calendars) and says that Vesak is a different day; the traditional story of Siddhartha, Sujata's milk-rice and the morning star, retold in two read-aloud pages with questions to ask afterwards; a calendar of eight evenings, December 1 to 8, each with one five-minute practice of attention or kindness (listening to a bell, three breaths, a secret kindness, eating one raisin slowly); printable ornaments to color, cut and hang on a fig plant: bodhi leaves, a dharma wheel, a lotus, the morning star and three jewels; a simple milk-rice recipe card; a one-minute sitting guide; answers to questions children ask; a coloring page; and a keepsake page.

No figure of the Buddha is drawn. The ficus with lights and the milk-rice are this kit's own ideas and are not presented as tradition; the grown-up page says where each custom comes from. Prints on US Letter or A4 (on A4, choose Fit to page).

This printable was created with the help of AI tools, then checked fact by fact.

Made by Made for This Day — we wrote it, we sell it, and we answer for it.

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