Palm Sunday

Sitting on Thy throne in heaven, and carried on a foal on earth, O Christ God, accept the praise of angels and the songs of children who sing: Blessed is He who comes to recall Adam!

Today begins Holy Week for us. Well, technically it began last night because we count days from sunset to sunset, so Palm Sunday began with Vespers last night. Here's a picture of our home Icon corner decorated for Palm Sunday.
 
Anytime there's a picture of an Icon corner online there's a host of comments asking "Who is that saint under the Theotokos to the right of Euphrosynos?" so here's a breakdown of ours.

There's Christ in the Pantokrator pose (it means "The Omnipotent" or "The Sustainer of All." At our parish we usually translate it as "He Who holds all things in His hands.") and the Theotokos to His right. Above them is a wooden cross given to us by Protodeacon and his wife for our wedding. Between Christ and the Theotokos is St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco, who is our family patron saint ("Slava" in Serbian.) On the women's side we have St. Anastasia, my wife's patron, under the Theotokos, and St. Euphemia, who we both like, next to her. On the men's side we have St. Joseph the Betrothed under Christ, my patron, and St. Panteleimon the Unmercenary (an unmercenary is a doctor who refuses payment for his services, the complete opposite of a mercenary) who we honor because of the role he played in healing my sister's breast cancer (he's still a doctor!) and in the center is St. Athanasius, the patron of our baby boy. St. Michael is sitting on the men's side of the piano too.