Candlemas Celebration

We had a lovely Candlemas Celebration at a friend's house today.  She made homemade waffles, while her teenage son whipped us up some homemade whipped cream accompanied with a beautiful fruit spread and real melted  hot chocolate.  The Mamas and one Papa dipped Beeswax candles while the children played and then she told the story of  "The Carrot" (In Wynstone Press's Spring Book) for the little ones, with the help of some of the older children using her beautiful hand sewn wool felt bunnies:

You can see more of her precious bunnies on her blog, Chocolate Fishies.  Hope everyone had a wonderful Candlemas too.

A Gathering of Friends

This is such a hectic time of year and its easy to get wrapped up in the hustle and bustle, the shop shop shop, eat eat eat....and not to say we haven't done our fair share of shopping and eating, but today we slowed down and celebrated the simple things, beautiful music,  the magic of story, shared food, and lovely friends.

We moved some furniture outside around the firepit

Listened to some traditional Christmas songs on the Cello

Then Gathered for Story Time.

I so love "Waldorf Puppet Shows"  I really enjoyed seeing this one, C called the children to circle with a little tune on her glockenspiel then lit the candle with such reverence as she sang a sweet little verse.  Then she slowly unveiled her beautiful felted story apron that was covered with silk. She told us a sweet little story about many forest creatures making their home in a mitten the children had dropped after Hulda had shook our her feather comforter and covered the land with snow.   When the mitten could hold no more animals, Whiskers the mouse sneezed and one by one all the animals tumbled out of the mitten.  It was so very sweet and the apron was just lovely with little pockets for the animals.
I really think this was the best day my children have had this holiday season, I am so lucky to have such a wonderful community to share it with.  Many blessings to you and yours this holiday, may it be filled with magic!

Holiday Gifts

This Holiday Season I am focusing more on experiences, creating traditions for the little ones, and slowing down instead of material things, and the stress of the typical holiday rush, rush, rush.

A few of the experiences we have done or are planning to do include: a nature walk in our woods gathering holiday greenery and decorating our house, a week of stories about St. Nicholas, concluding with a few treasures found in their shoes, a trip to Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens to see the lights, a spiral walk with friends, a St. Nicholas/Santa Lucia celebration at a friends house, baking saffron rolls and a week of Santa Lucia stories, The Charlottesville Holiday Bizarre trip with friends, a Yule celebration with friends, our own Yule celebration with a few presents, a trip downtown to see the lights and the trains, and four weeks celebrating advent with a little story about the mineral, plant, animal and human kingdoms for each of their weeks, a Christmas meal with my grandmother, mother and father and a few more presents, and baking "holiday festive foods" instead of bread on our weekly "baking day". I'd like to add a day of sledding, snowman building and snow angels to the list!  As magical as I think all of the above things are, I was just truly gifted with one experience that trumps them all!  A friend of mine's son wanted to pawn his cello to by his mother a gift this year, touched by the sentiment she posted this on Facebook, where another friend of her's suggested he busk downtown to earn money instead, which gave me the wonderful idea of hiring him to do a concert for our playgroup and other friends and family.  The idea morphed into a wonderful afternoon, we are going to set up tree stumps around a bonfire, where he will play some holiday songs for us, then his mother, a Waldorf teacher, is going to do a puppet show based on the Chinese tale "The Rabbit and the Carrot" from the book "Spring" , then we will have some light refreshments and free play and conclude with a walk around our spiral.  I am so excited I just know the children are going to love this so much more than any toy I could give them.

At this age a huge influx of toys and gifts would just overwhelm them and my children (as I'm sure every parent feels) have far too much!

I made each of the little one's a special blanket, they each are getting a tin of beeswax block crayons, a special book, and a new set of Stockmar watercolors to share. Kiera is getting a cute little wooden tea set, and I am making her a collection of felt tea bags, and Eoghan is getting a little gnome tree fort from Willodel with some peg doll gnomes I made.

Hoping for a simple, nourishing holiday season. Shared with our beautiful friends and family.

Even the littles Need to take a moment to rest.  We just collected some greens to decorate our home with on a longer than usual nature walk.

Handmade Holiday Toy Exchange

A few photo's from my Handmade Holiday Toy Exchange on Saturday.  

I wish I had remembered to take photos of all the beautiful toys that were crafted but I got so excited in seeing what everyone made, I forgot all about photos.  I did take a few photos of the gifts I received the next morning as you will see below, but there were so many amazing crafts I really wish I had documented them all!

Our Advent Wreath and Gnomes welcoming friends our table

Some beeswax snowflakes and holiday greenery the littles and I collected on a nature walk

Clementines and Pomegranates

a few sugary treats and gluhwein

Sugarplums (thanks to Sparkle Stories for the recipe).

Goodies waiting to be opened

Homemade sparkle play dough scented with doTERRA oils

Walking blocks

A sweet little ball

This darling little gnome featured in "A Little Farm Story" about protecting the hens.

The gnomes and trees I made for the exchange

It was such a lovely evening filled with great conversations and such creativity, we have decide have one of these every season.  I already cannot wait for our Spring Exchange.

Once Upon A Time.....

We spent yesterday celebrating the wedding of our dear friends, Courtney and Jean-Baptiste.  Look How lovely Everything was, and it was all handmade and donated by friends!

They Lived Happily Ever After!

Martinmas Lantern Walk 2012

Today was our schools Martinmas Lantern Walk.  Usually the Sprouts class does not walk, but there were a few parents with older children that were going to be there as well as some friends of ours who's children are in the grades so we decided to attend this one too.  We have one with our homeschool group this Sunday as well.

I had the children do some wet on wet water coloring to craft our lanterns from.

Here are our finished lanterns

Off we go!

The Second Grade Class tells the story of Saint Martin

A Roman Soldier who knows the magic of multiplying through division

He divides his cloak in 1/2 to warm this beggar.

We brought a lantern to share

Eoghan playing with his kindergarten friend Eisen

Around the dark path we light the way

Resting after our walk

Bringing light to darkness

Such a beautiful way to light up the night.

Hope everyone had an equally as beautiful Martinmas, may you carry your special light with you into the dark half of the year.