Candlemas and Groundhog Day.

I had created a special Candlmas/Groundhog day themed circle and story for Playgarden on Monday, but sadly it was cancelled due to a severe ice storm.  The next day was 72 degrees and we are expecting snow tonight!  It has been such a strange week for weather I really have no idea what the groundhog will see on Saturday.

Me and the littles have been doing our special Candlemas and Groundhog Circle all week, I took ideas from our Earth Schooling curriculum and from some really great sources on the web such as, Seasons of Joy  and The Mystical Kingdom to come up with some fun content for our circle and I made up a little story  to tell.

Once, upon a time brother and sister woke up one morning and they could feel excitement in the air.  They knew it was a special day but they did not yet know why.  They went into the woods to ask their woodland friends.  First they came to Bee's hive, and Bee was busy at working buzzing around.  They asked,"Bee why so busy today?"  Bee replied,  "Today is Candlemas!  I must make sure that I have plenty of wax to share, so that everyone has candles this year."

  Oh okay the children thought, that explains why Bee is busy but what is going on with all of our other friends?  They spotted Gnome, and went to inquire, "Gnome, what is going on today?  Why is everyone so excited?"  Gnome said, "Oh well today is Groundhog day, we must go see Groundhog to see if Winter shall be done."  "Oh the children replied, "Can we come with you to see Groundhog too?'.

 Gnome and the Children continued into the woods, where they ran into their friend Bear, "Hello Bear.  What are you doing out of your cave today?"  Bear replied "I am off to see Groundhog so I shall know when to wake up from my long Winter's nap."  "We are going to see Groundhog too, you should follow us."  I sing "Follow, follow follow, follow me." while the bear, the gnome, and the children make their way to the clearing to find Groundhog. 

 Once everyone has arrived Groundhog pops out of his mound and says, 

"If Candlemas Day be fair and bright,

Winter will have another fight.

If Candlemas Day brings cloud and rain,

Winter won't come again"

(taken from a verse found on The Mystical Kingdom's blog)

We have done a few different scenarios with the weather, the children's favorite is the snow, I give them a basket of wool roving to drop over our story as we sing, 

"Dance Like Snowflakes, Dance Like Snowflakes, 

Whirling Twirling Snowflakes, Whirling Twirling Snowflakes, 

Everywhere, Everywhere."

(our version of a song, in Little Acorn Learning's January 5 day guide)

A special Thank you to The Wool Food Mama for gifting us with this sweet little Groundhog as she was working out some prototypes and was not yet pleased with this little fellow.  We love him very much here and have been enjoying out stories with him.

We will do our Special Candlemas Circle with our Playgarden children on Monday and we are going to make little acorn cap candles for everyone to take home.  So it has been nice to have a week to practice the circle with my own children and to really let them "breath into the story".

We also have a Candlemas breakfast we will be attending with friends that I am really looking forward too,  the hostess is a Waldorf grades teacher and she has prepared a puppet play for us and we will be dipping beeswax candles and then that evening our homeschool group is doing a spiralwalk that we hope to attend but it is right at "Pumpkin Time" I will have to see if it is just too much festivity for the littles in one day.

Also don't forget to enter the Gnome Giveaway, tomorrow is the last day and our winner will be announced on Candlemas Day.  

Our Family Yule Celebration

We opened our solstice presents this morning, even with only 5 presents each to open, I think it might have been a little too much.  The first present both of them chose to open was a little tin of beexwax crayons, perhaps because they were in gift bags instead of wrapped up in silks, but as soon as they opened their crayons they were done, they were ready to color and seemed unconcerned with the rest of the presents on the table.   After a short break to play with our crayons they were ready to see what was in the rest of the packages.  

Seashells!  Which have been used as both phones and dishes so far this morning.

 

Wrapped up in her mama made blanket

Hello? Ocean can you hear me?

Then we gathered with friends for a walk around our spiral and a great Yule feast.

The center candle that will light each of our candles as the light grows stronger and stronger.

Our little spiral that I braved really scary spiders to build!

A quick photo of our lanterns left in the spiral.

One of our friends made these beautiful cloaks for all the children in our playgarden, I wish I had a better camera to take photographs at night, the children looked so sweet all wrapped up in their matching cloaks so lovingly crafted for them carrying their lanterns in the beautiful starry night.

The Night Before....

We celebrate Winter Solstice/Yule in our home and spend Christmas with extended family.  The night before our big celebration I finished up a doll I made for a dear friend of ours.  She is a bit of a collaboration.  I made the doll and her mother is sewing her clothes.  I think she turned out so sweet, I cannot wait until she is introduced to little Anelie.

After the littles went to bed I set up a wooden tree on their table and put their gits underneath of it.  We opted not to put up a real tree this year, I thought with a 2 year old and 1 year old it would be more of a hazard/hassle than it would be worth but am looking forward to the smell of pine needles in our home again next year.  I found the little wooden tree unfinished at our local craft store for $5.  I just watercolored it and sealed it with beeswax, I think it turned out quite lovely.

I also finished building our spiral for our Solstice Celebration with our friends on Saturday, but it was too dark to take any pictures, I'll post some before our actual celebration. 

Tomorrow when I wake up I will fill the house with candle light then wake the little ones up, we will open their presents, have a special breakfast of suncakes, followed by a little crafting of treats for our woodland friends, then take a nice walk in the woods to distribute them.    I hope everyone has a beautiful solstice!  I feel like a child again,  up way past by bedtime in anticiaption of our speical day tomorrow.

Happy Santa Lucia Day!

I just love how special "festival days" are even if its just my family celebrating.  We had originally planned to have some friends over this afternoon to join in our celebration but seasonal illnesses seem to be going around our playgarden children.  So it was just me and the little ones today.

We made Santa Lucia Buns

Then we had a little tea party

Look how excited Eoghan is to eat his buns!

They are delicious!

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Kiera was more excited about her cinnamon milk and tea

Then we told a sweet little story about Santa Lucia and Saint Nicholas bringing food and gifts to the children hiding in the caves.  Loosely based on this story from my friend's blog.

Aren't our Santa Lucia and Saint Nicholas figures just precious?  We won them in a giveaway from The Magic Onions and Armadillo Dreams! 

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.

Happy Saint Nicholas Day!

We have been telling the story of Saint Nicholas at bedtime all week, tonight after I finished telling them the story I asked the littles if they would like to but their shoes out and see if Saint Nicholas would leave them a special treasure too.  I have to admit I was actually surprised at how well they understood they both took their shoes to the back door, and attempted to put them outside but I convinced them they could go on the welcome mat.

Saint Nicholas came!  He left a clementine, a fruit leather, some honey sticks and a sweet little gnome peg doll in a stocking.

I used the free pattern at Wee Folk Art to craft these little guys.

We will bake cookies today and go deliver them to friends in celebration of Saint Nicholas.  Wishing everyone a beautiful celebration filled with warmth and love!

Our Holiday Season has Begun

We celebrate Winter Solstice instead of Christmas in our home, so we begin Advent a week earlier so we too have four Sundays before Solstice.  This is our little advent wreath, looking a little bare as we celebrate the mineral kingdom.  

 I have been telling the children a short little story about these gnomes noticing it has grown cold and dark outside as if the sun has gone to sleep, the gnomes are sad and miss the sun's beautiful warmth and light but one day while walking along a stony path they discover a crystal that glimmers, the gnomes recognize the light from the sun and know that soon the sun will wake up and shine bright for them again. In the meantime the gnomes take the crystal into their home and light candles waiting for the sun's return.

Looking for sparkly rocks that contain the light of the sun

Eoghan found one!

Kiera found two!  We brought them in and added them to our advent bowl.

We went to our local botanical garden's festival of lights.  The theme this year was East meets West.  The Chinese Dragon was a truly beautiful display.

Gourds in the garden

Toadstools

All bundled up and we picked up a hitch hiking friend, Anelie.

Origami cranes

Part of a beautiful story land inspired by "The Empty Pot"

Listening to the garden fairies tell the story of The Empty Pot

a beautiful replica of the children's treehouse in the Children's Garden

It was a lovely evening and a beautiful way to begin our holiday season.  What special events do you have planned to celebrate?  I would love to hear some ideas!