On Halloween Night...

...a dragon slayer, a knight and a wizard roomed the streets gathering their loot (the wizard took no part in the loot.)  They feasted, they slept, and they awoke to a halloween fairy surprise (in exchange for the rest of that candy).  Oh, Halloween.

In Advent...

(more on the Jesse tree soon...)

I love this time.  This time of waiting; a space for remembering that we are part of a bigger story... a story that is so much bigger than us and our time.  A time of remembering that God has a larger plan and longs to restore us to our full humanity, that we might fully be imago Dei.  We watch the glow of lighted candles. We play with the story of the greatest light coming to earth to bring us into right relatedness to God, others, self and the wonders of creation.  And we share the story and history of the people of God and how creation groans waiting for a rescuer.  

We are in advent.

Celebrating St. Nicholas

St. Nicholas, bishop of Myra, was best known for giving food and money to the poor and for making toys and gingerbreads for children.  The past two years we've had friends join us for a St. Nick Dinner (simple soup and salad) followed by St. Nick bags with a small wood toy, a gingerbread man, chocolate coins and an orange to represent all the things he was known for giving. 

This year we added two books to our library Saint Nicholas: The Real Story of the Christmas Legend and Saint Nicholas: The story of the real Santa Claus.  I'm impressed with both, they are well illustrated and are good tellings of the story of the three daughters St Nick gave money to (secretly in the night - and some of it supposedly fell in stockings) for their dowries.   The former goes into the 'legend of Santa Clause' at the end, which I don't read aloud because I want to keep the magic of Santa alive for Jonah.  They are both good resources for celebrating Saint Nicholas Day (typically Dec 6, though in Holland and in our house this year Dec 5.)

Two girls, St. Nick, money bag, and stocking for telling and playing with the St. Nicholas story.

Advent

 We have entered the time of advent.  It is a time of waiting, but also a time of preparing for the great mystery of Christmas.  What does it mean to prepare for the mystery of Christmas and not get caught up in the business of the season?  I have plans for celebrations to share and stories to tell; but I also want time to ponder and be still.  I want to ponder (as Mary did) all that the advent of Christ means.  I'm excited to share the magic of Christmas with my sons and welcome all that santa, elves, christmas gnomes and treats add to this time; but I also want the magic of Christmas to point them back to the mystery of the incarnation.  I want to celebrate the in-breaking of God's kingdom.  I long to practice giving generously to each other and others; but I also don't want the season to become enshrined in wrapping paper and wish lists.  I want to give out of love and not compulsion.

Notes on our godly play table at home: The cloth has changed from the green of ordinary time to the purple of advent.  Postcards and Christmas cards from years past depicting the story hang above this space.  The nativity has appeared.  The felt card depicting the hand of the prophets and the first candle of advent is laying out (from Advent 1 lesson in godly play.)  Our advent calendar hangs above the table ready for the pieces to place on our Jesse tree (I'm hoping to start on the first of December, but must make the pieces first - I'll write more on this soon I hope.)  

I love that both boys started their play this morning in this space that transformed after they were in bed last night.  The cloth and pieces are now laying on the floor where little hands pulled them after much exploration, but I am so grateful to see them playing with the story that I'll gladly remake the scene (the first remake of many this season I'm sure!)

Thanks Giving

Day 3 - A November Discipline of giving thanks each day.

Good Stories Realized:

I love helping to make our favorite stories come alive for the boys.  I am so grateful for the plethora of stories that have been carefully crafted.  I am also grateful that all the costumes were finished for this Halloween (even with a few hours to spare!), that Jonah loved every minute of being the Wizard of Oz and that he called me Dorothy all night on Halloween.

Spooky Reads

I love dressing up and planning costumes (I almost put making costumes... but right now I'm feeling very unmotivated to sew my blue plaid jumper.)  But, aside from costumes and a little pumpkin carving, I've never been a big 'Halloween' fan.  I've never liked scary things (I wasn't allowed to watch Road Runner as a kid because I cried every time the coyote got hurt), trick-or-treating was always felt a little awkward, and orange and black just don't excite me.  But this year, Jonah's enthusiasm for ghosts and everything spooky has pulled me along and I'm enjoying some Halloween fun.  

Halloween, thought its roots are from the UK, isn't a big holiday here.  Trick-or-Treating isn't done much  though there is some 'fancy dress'.   We are hosting a halloween gathering Saturday (thus why I need to finish four costumes: two of which are started) so Jonah can wear his Wizard of Oz costume.  And in the mean time we are enjoying some favorite Halloween books.

 Okay, so a couple of these books aren't actually about halloween, but Pumpkins.  Helen Cooper's Pumpkin Soup remains my favorite book for the season (post here from last year).  I love her art work and layout.  I'm planning on doing a British Picture Book post on her, so I won't say to much other than, this book is a must read, along with the sequels: A Pipkin of Pepper and Delicious!

 I also love Pumpkin Pumpkin by Jeanne Titherington.  Few words, soft images, and a lovely story of a boy planting a seed, watching it grow, making a jack-o-lantern, and then saving seeds to have another go next year make this book glow with good feelings.   It is great for a younger audience.

 I wrote a whole post on Julia Donaldson here, so I won't say much about Room on the Broom.  It is fun, light hearted, has a dragon and a lot of animals - all attractive elements in our home.

 Again, this book isn't about Halloween proper, but about Almonzo's prize winning pumpkin he takes to the fair.  I think of the fair being in late summer (ours always was), but many are in autumn as that is when the harvest is finished and this book has an autumnal feel.

Scary, Scary Halloween by Eve Bunting arrived in the mail today (thank you Gammy!) The illustrations are by Jan Brett, who is a favorite of mine.  This is one of her earlier works, so it doesn't have the same developed style her later books share, but it is well done.  This is our spookiest Halloween book by far (not that that is saying to much) as it includes all the traditional characters: werewolf, mummy, ghost, goblins, vampire...  But, I think it is Jonah's new favorite.  

Jonah chose the Magic Tree House research guide on Ghosts this month (thanks Grandma!) and goes ghost hunting outside most nights with Daddy before bed.  It is fascinating to watch him scare himself and then work through his fear over and over.  It is obvious that there is some emotional development going on, and while I want to hide scary things, right now he wants to be scared so that he can learn to deal with fear.   While I'm careful about what he reads and extremely selective on what he watches (images are very different than words) I do think this kind of controlled scary is healthy... so long as I don't get too scared.

Autumn Garlands Galore

 This past week our hands have been busy.  We've been collecting, cutting, tying, threading, and buttoning to make some autumn garlands to sprig up the house.  It is no secret that, while I'm very grateful for this spacious (to us) rented home, I detest the shiny white wallpaper that is in every room (except the oddly tiled bathrooms and kitchen, and that is another story).  How I wish we had Jim's large oil paintings to cover up large portions of the wall, but those didn't traverse the sea and I can't bring myself to spend money on buying prints, when we'll be back to real art in a year (or two).   So, I'm grateful for seasonal decor that covers large areas and brings the eye away from glaringly white and paisley wallpaper to something festive.

Garland #1 is a simple a pinecone garland made with pinecones and small strips of fabric tied to twine.  I saw (here on bending birches) and loved how natural it looked and the fact that Jonah and I could collect pinecones and throw it together in an afternoon.

 Garland #2 is truly going across a wall I have nothing to hang on are the felt leaves I stitched last year while nursing a wee babe.  We slipped a piece of paper in one each day with things we were thankful for on the thanksgiving tree, but this year I tied scraps of fabric on our seasons tree and really like it, so I decided that tying some branches together and hanging these as a garland might be fun.  I'm not sure if we'll tuck our thanksgiving thoughts in them or do something different this year.

 Garland #3 was inspired by the felt garlands in handmade home and Jonah's disappointment when a blow up ghost he was given last year got a hole when we first blew it up this year. For the garland, I made the ghost and cut out the bats and felt squares (the grey is from felted sweater scraps - same sweater I used to make the birthday elephants.)  Jonah drew some ghost faces and happily threaded the first bit of the garland.  I used orange wool yarn that I had a small piece of and it was a bit hard to thread.  If doing this with Jonah again I would use something thinner, maybe even embroidery floss.  But, I finished the project and hung it today.

Happy Autumn Days!

Happy St. Patrick's Day

The nature table is turning toward spring. We picked ferns on our hike across the street this morning and I'm really enjoying the green.

I wanted Jonah to listen to the "Adventures in Odyssey" St. Patrick: heart of fire. It is one of my favorite Odyssey episodes. I own it, but it is somewhere in storage in Seattle. I thought he could listen online, but unfortunately they haven't aired it recently enough to be in the archives you can listen to. But, fortunately, Jonah discovered that he likes listening to Odysseys, so while he listened to Fairy Tal-e-vision (which was quite funny, though he didn't get any of the TV references) I made a little St. Patrick. I think he looks more like a root child with a beard. I like him though and want to make some more in other colors. I love felt!

Clover rolls, sausages and potato/celeriac mash (died green), and some broad beans - St. Patty's day dinner was pretty yummy. And for the North Americans reading this who haven't discovered the wonders of sausage for dinner, don't imagine store bought breakfast sausage - these local farmers market wonders are a whole other beast - and oh so yummy!

A long way to easter

Well, sometimes I'm wise enough to let go of my original ambitious plan and go with something else. Last year (you may remember this), I began sewing little felt ornaments or drawing pictures to hang for each of the forty days of lent that represented a story from Jesus' ministry. But, I didn't finish last year and I had hoped to make a wall hanging with pockets before this lent began. Well, it hasn't and won't happen this year, so we went with a lenten chain to help us remember on this journey of Lent. Instead of doing the stories from the ministry of Jesus we are doing names of Jesus. I used the list of scripture from Zimmerman's Celebrating the Church Year and wrote the passage on each link in the chain. I did include sundays, so even though we started about a week late there were still forty links. The green link is palm sunday, the black good friday and the white is Easter. We are all enjoying this daily reminder that we are journeying toward the mystery of Easter and it only took one nap time to complete, which is a real bonus in life right now.

The journey of Lent begins

I didn't grow up with the lenten tradition, and yet, it means so much to me now. I can't imagine not using the church year to guide me. There is something about seasons and traditions that mark time and give a sense of purpose and wholeness. There is a connection with the natural year that in turn reflects the spiritual. It is a cycle that keeps drawing me inward to my own spirituality and outward to seeing the needs around me. It reflects the ebb and flow of real life in all its intangibility and contradictions. It is something I am so deeply committed to sharing with my children so that they to can find their own place among the people of God and the rest of God's good creation. We didn't make it to an ash Wednesday service today, but instead, followed the 'book of common prayer' and had our own little service at our 'godly play' table upstairs. We began by changing the cloth from green of the 'great green growing sundays' to the purple of lent and ended with ashes and confession.

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The cross of ashes doesn't show up well in this picture, but it is there. (Jim says this image is creepy - it it my reflection in a black computer screen - you have to give a girl with a camera a little license to be creative, even if it is just weird sometimes.)

Happy Groundhog day

Groundhog Day is one of those days that I feel proud to be Pennsylvanian. It is a quirky tradition, but I'll take any distraction I can find to get through February and on to Spring. And who doesn't love a warm gingerbread cookie shaped like a rodent with a raisin for an eye?

Well, we are in for six more weeks of winter. And if you've never seen the pageantry of the day in Punxsutawney it is worth a look.

Jonah and I had fun with this poem today.

Ground Hog Day

by Lilian Moore

Ground Hog sleeps

All winter

Snug in his fur,

Dreams

Green dreams of

Grassy shoots,

Of nicely newly nibbly

Roots --

Ah, he starts to

Stir.

With drowsy

Stare

Looks from his burrow

Out on fields of

Snow.

What's there?

Oh no.

His shadow. Oh,

How sad!

Six more

Wintry Weeks

To go.

Celebrating Epiphany

We've been attempting to build traditions around the twelve days of Christmas. The last day of Christmas is Epiphany, which is the day of the wise men.

Some friends told us about the custom of filling shoes on Dia de Reyes with grass for the wisemens' camels. The wisemen then leave gifts in return.

We forgot to have Jonah fill his shoes the night before. So, before dinner on Epiphany we told him to fill his shoes. He did. He then proceeded to fine everyone else's shoes and fill those too. Luckily the wisemen had some extra candy for all those extra shoes!

Jonah pasted Gems on crowns for every one before dinner. We had breakfast for dinner. I attempted to make the pancakes in the shape of crowns with Blueberries for gems. I also made the Italian Grotto Eggs from "A Homemade Life" - so yummy!

After dinner Jonah was delighted to find that the wise men had left him a book and three candies to represent the gold, frankincense and Myrrh.

We then read the story of the wise men from Matthew, which put someone to sleep.

Happy Epiphany!

Easter Sunday

This was our sunday school class on Easter Sunday morning.  Ten kids  and four adults and one empty tomb cake all stuffed into the tiny office space  - wow!

So, I had kakis and a button down pin striped shirt picked out for Easter Sunday Morning, but Dad was on top of things and dressed Jonah before I could (I'm not going to complain about that!) and Jonah refused to change.  But, he still wore the adorable sweater Grandma bought him on her visit.

He loved those little chocolate eggs he found outside after church.  

Interesting note: they don't have plastic eggs in the UK (at least not that I've seen) so they just hide foil wrapped eggs around - harder to find and prettier.

The end of the lent tree

Well, I actually took down our bigger seasons tree (the little Easter tree is still on the nature table) today as I would like to use the space for something else.  I also have in the back of my mind that it is about time to begin as much sorting and simplifying as possible as moving everything into storage in May so we can travel draws closer.

So, my lenten discipline of telling a story for each day of lent and having a corresponding ornament for on the 'lenten tree' went well, though I certainly didn't end up doing every day.  I probably did about half the days.  Between visitors, Jim being gone, and the low energy of the first trimester - it was a discipline that was breaking me and not making me - thus we slowed it down a bit.   Here are a few of my favorite ornaments and the stories they represent.

Dove: John the Baptist baptizes Jesus and the Holy spirit comes down like a dove.  "This is my son whom I love."

The temptation of Christ: The three sides are Bread, Kingdoms of the world and Jesus on top of the Temple.  I really like this one, but Jonah is convinced that the piece of bread is a hat.

The calming of the Storm: I've been reflecting a lot on this passage as I led a Bible study on it a few weeks ago.  The opposite of faith is giving way to fear.  Jesus asks us to have faith that he is with us - not necessarily in desirable outcomes... lots to think about.

The other side of this ornament is Jesus in the boat with calm surrounding him.

This is probably Jonah's favorite. Zacchaeus' sycamore tree with a pocket to put Zacchaeus in when telling the story.

The loaves and the fish.

I realized that all the ones I put up are embroidered.  We also did little cards that we drew the story on and hung some nights, some paper folded ones and some that used cloth and sticks glued together.   My goal for next year is to make the black lent calendar with pockets for them all and perhaps finish making the forty days.  Its funny to think that next lent I'll have a 6 month old - that might slow me down :o)