Light the Advent Candle One

On this first Sunday in Advent we collected greens and branches for the school's Winter Fair,

we worked on secret gifts (sniff, the sewing machine died),

and we made a new Advent candle holder--we can't decide if it looks like a cool, woodsy candle holder or a giant claw.

Light the Advent candle one,
now the waiting has begun.

We have started on our way,
time to think of Christmas Day.

Candle, candle burning bright,
shining in the cold winter night.

Candle, candle burning bright,
fill our hearts with Christmas light.

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Feeling Snug

Over the river and through the woods
To Grandmother's house we go.....

Thanksgiving is my favorite time of year. I love the family gatherings, the traditional foods, the long walks in the cool air. I love that it remains old fashioned and not merchandised.

It's a snug time of year and I grew up with a Mother who truly appreciated all that went into making a snug home and a Thanksgiving steeped in tradition. All through my childhood, my Mother was working on a piece of New England history that would change the way historians and students would interpret the New England home and family. This book is the result.

Her work has truly shaped what I have wanted for my own family--a home filled with traditions, handwork, and a yearly rhythm of foods and activities shaped by the New England seasons.

I carry with me her legacy of Thanksgiving celebrations--a day filled with family, tradition, and celebration of the bounty of this earth.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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Feeling Ahead of the Game

I spent the afternoon with my dear old sewing machine today. It was my Grandmother's. It has had a hard life, but while there are times I'd love a more modern machine, it still faithfully sews just about everything but denim.

Nels and I have given each other handmade gifts since the first Christmas we were married. The girls now join us in making gifts which we open on Christmas Eve. I am often the last person to be up late making gifts after helping everybody else.

Last winter I declared that I would not have another Christmas with Jane Austen where I was knitting at all hours. Happily, I have come up with ideas early this year and have the most complicated almost finished. I feel so ahead of the game!

I know I'll probably be madly making some cute little thing like these to peak out of the stockings, but at least the pressure is off and I can hunt about for something cute. Any ideas out there?

I think it can be hard to come up with handmade gift ideas for the holidays. I know I am always searching for ideas. I put a category in my sidebar called "Handmade Holidays" which links to all my posts about our handmade gifts. Scroll down to the labels section.

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Our Martinmas Party

Yesterday, after the kids took several carloads of clothing and food to the local shelter, we began to get ready for our Martinmas party. We made new lanterns because I wanted some safer, jar lanterns in the house. They glowed quite beautifully in the dark.

Helen put lanterns on our stone walls and up our driveway.

She made a path of luminaries down to the bonfire.

Our guests arrived bearing wild mushroom risotto, roasted root vegetables, soup, breads, and salad. What a feast. We visited by the fire for a long time, watching it carefully with hoses and buckets as it got a bit bigger than we had wanted. note: we won't be having a bonfire without snow again.

The kids played a wild game in the dark that featured split second timing with stop watches, bursting out of leaf piles, flashlights, and running hard.

Later, we all retreated into the warm glow of the lanterns for the feast followed by tea, gingerbread, and brownies. The kids and many of the adults then joined in a big game of sardines in the dark. It was quite the romp through the house.

What a fun, glowing night. It ended, quite thankfully, with a gentle rain that eased my mind about any bonfire remnants.

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A Pot of Tea

What to do after a tough day at school?
Bake warm cookies and serve tea.

Make it a production, complete with a teapot.

Sit and *be* while the homework gets finished
and the stresses fall away.

I'm serving a lot of tea and baking a lot of cookies these days to help Helen who is going through a bit of a rough spot at school.

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Martinmas

When our children were young, we attended a lantern walk at our school in celebration of Martinmas. The children walked through the dark woods with lanterns in their hands, singing songs. Over the years they made paper lanterns, jar lanterns (my favorite for safety), tin lanterns, and balloon lanterns (my favorite for beauty).

It was a simple event, perfect for young children who don't need to think deeply about this important turning of the year, this turning to quietude, thankfulness, and giving. Rather, it provided a picture for their little souls--a spark of light, deep in the night.

At home, I read this sweet story about a little girl and an injured goose and how she had to let her own desires go in order to help the goose.

Sadly, the girls have outgrown the lantern walk, but not the need to consciously turn toward the new season which is upon us. We're doing this in a couple of ways this year--we'll be taking some time to celebrate that gesture of giving that we each have deep within us, by both actively reaching out and by speaking quietly to that spark within.

Last year, we took part in Soulemama's baby cap project for Haiti. I'm now hunting for another such project. I have just purchased this new book to share with the girls this week. Perhaps it will provide us with some inspiration.

Helen is also working on a food and clothing drive this week for our local shelter. After the kids stock shelves, the families will all be coming to our house for a Martinmas potluck and bonfire. Here are the invitations we made. They are tiny paper lanterns with the invites rolled up inside.


We'll put all our Ikea lanterns along the drive and our homemade lanterns inside. We'll have as an electricity-free evening as possible.

After we enjoy the warm food and friendship, we'll venture into the dark to watch sparks from the bonfire rise high into the sky. While we won't be singing our lantern walk songs, hopefully those sparks will touch the teens just as the little lights in the lanterns did when they were young. Take a moment this week and celebrate that spark deep within.

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Simple Gifts

There are so many reasons why this video is special to me.

It is one of my favorite songs...it speaks to an ongoing theme of simplicity that we strive for in our home...it's a gift from my girls to me because playing together takes a lot of patience and practice...and it's a gift from my girls to their Grandmother who is recuperating from a knee replacement she had last week.

Enjoy

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A Trio of Awards

Just when I start to wonder if people are reading my blog, the blog world responds. Over the past couple of months, I've "met" some new readers and have received some awards.

Renee, at Heirloom Seasons, has passed on the Kreative Blogger award.


Lisa, at Over the Crescent Moon, has passed on the Honest Scrap award, and


Narsingh, at Teaching Handwork, has passed on the Gorgeous Blogger award
In these awards I am to list some things about myself that my readers might not know and then to pass on the awards.

I'm going to pass these awards on to 2 bloggers whom I have recently met and 1 blogger who continues to inspire me (although there are many out there).

Probably the most exciting recent "blog moment" for me was stumbling into Catherine at In the Pantry. We discovered many connections from our mutual love of libraries, history, and historic houses, to the fact that we once lived in the same town, to the fact that she had once worked for my parents. So, to Catherine goes the Honest Scrap Award.

I have also been enjoying Nicole's blog at GardenMama. Nicole lives not too far away and I keep thinking our paths may cross one day. I do know that we were within about 50 feet of each other once! Nicole's photos continue to just stun me. I pass the Gorgeous Blog Award on to Nicole.

And finally, I pass the Kreative Blog award on to Grace at Uncommon Grace. Grace's blog is one of my great inspirations. As I think about what it means to be a Waldorf family with older children, her beautiful family life inspires me and reminds me of what I want to keep as my children enter adolescence.

Finally, a few things you might not know about me....

• I once skydived (and will never do it again).
• I am a complete Virgo neatnik person who likes everything tidy and overly organized.
• I adore the library and go more than once a week to more than one. I should have been a librarian.
• I almost got my PhD in history. Passed my exams, but a new family life and an ill child got in the way of completing. No regrets.
• I really, really love history thanks to a Mother and Father who steeped me in old New England traditions and story from the time I was very young.
• Every now and then I need an oreo.

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