A Blessingway for Me

Last Saturday night, a small group of my family and friends gathered in my home to bless me and my journey to the birth of this baby. It was truly one of the most beautiful experiences of my life, and one I will always treasure. I am very blessed that this was my second blessingway -- I was also given one before James was born, as well. He was actually born the following morning, which was a magical experience coming right after a beautiful blessingway. This time, as my baby has not come yet, I have been able to really relish my blessingway experience in a way I wasn't able to last time, and I have been treasuring it in my heart each day since.

Candles, rolled during the blessingway.

Doing a blessingway "play-by-play" feels very unnatural, so I'd just like to share a few photos from the evening (mostly taken by my friend Erin), and a couple from the next day of some of the beautiful and precious objects that these dear women gifted to me. I made a flickr photoset, as well, with a few more pictures from the evening.

Handwashing, a beautiful symbol of service and sharing, contemplating the beautiful work that our hands, as women and mothers, do each and every day. This is my sister washing my hands.

 

This photo has already been seen over at near:far. It is the long piece of yarn used to weave the circle of women together that evening. Now we are all wearing a piece of it as a bracelet until the baby is born.

Candles, lit.

Elisabeth holding my flower crown.

A tub tea that was used as a foot soak on the night of the blessingway, made by my friend Laura.

A wreath with objects representing my loved ones' hopes for me.

There is one layer of sand here to represent each member of our family of five!

I feel extremely grateful and blessed to have such a wonderful group of women in my life to share this time with me, and offer me their support and strength as I walk this path to new motherhood once again. Each of them has such a special place in my life, and I truly felt cradled in their love and strength. I know that my blessingway -- and the relationships that it represents -- will help to carry me through the final days (however many that may be!) of this pregnancy, my labor and birth, and my postpartum period, too.

The blessingway, for me, was a time to experience something real and intimate. I don't think that we allow ourselves enough opportunities for this in our fast-paced world, and I am so very grateful for these moments when they do arise.

This post has links to resources on blessingways, if the idea is new to you.

Christmas Eve

Having mailed off the last dolls over the weekend, I settled into a bit of handmade gift making over the last few days.

Just a little bit. I'm relieved that this year, I'll probably get to bed at a normal hour (unlike last year!).

Here's what we're up to on this day before Christmas:

::wrapping our gifts

::admiring our paperwhites, which have bloomed just in time

::dancing to some of our favorite holiday music

::decorating

::enjoying a flurry of snowflakes (more inside than outside...)

::baking

::hanging the stockings on our countertop with care, in the absence of a chimney!

::taking time to marvel at the miracles of this season

Wishing you and yours the happiest of holidays.

with love from Grace, Elisabeth, James, and the Daddy ;)

Where I've been

Over the last two weeks, here's where I have been:

Snuggled amongst quilts on the couch with these two, finishing handwork on my last few doll orders which are, at this point, several months behind schedule. (Eek! I just admitted that publicly!)

Enjoying our family tradition of candlelit Advent dinners.

Admiring our neighbor's pretty house.

Gazing at our Christmas tree.

Loving this little corner.

Walking in a wintery wonderland.

I hope you have all found yourselves just where you want to be as we enter this magical time of year!

A visit from St. Nicholas

Saturday was St. Nicholas Day, a favorite holiday in our home. Though popular in Waldorf circles, my introduction to it came as a little girl in Sunday school, and I have held it very dearly ever since then.

Each year, St. Nicholas visits our home -- and those of many others throughout the world! -- to fill our children's shoes with surprises. Chocolate coins, nuts, and oranges are all traditional treats. We always get chocolate coins. ;) St Nicholas also leaves my children small gifts -- usually books.

This year was a delight because it was James's first year to "get" it (oh, imagine the fun that Christmas will be this year!). The day before St. Nicholas's visit, Elisabeth was explaining the custom of leaving shoes out for St. Nicholas to fill, and when she said "and he puts chocolate in them," James exclaimed, "Oh! That's 'normous. That's humongous!"

Edited to add: The wooden St. Nicholas figure is made by Ostheimer.

I'm Thankful

Happy Saturday, everyone!

Even though it's two days late, I wanted to post some things I'm thankful for in honor of the Thanksgiving holiday. (Though it's never too late too be thankful, right?)

So, I'm thankful ...

~For two happy, funny, sweet, healthy wee ones, and the new baby who continues to grow just fine despite my constant rottenness.

~For Heather's fantastic pumpkin muffin recipe. So moist and delicious ... absolutely perfect for Thanksgiving breakfast.

~For sweet, sweet friends who give me presents just because. (And if you love this scarf as much as I do, Claudia has some in her shop!)

~For lovely, fantastic friends in general -- here in my hometown, and all of you around the world.

~For Christmas cards that are ready to go into the mail today.

~For boys who love dollies.

~For puppies, especially those who live with my brother. ;)

~For the winter and holiday books that are sneaking their way into our daily rotation. (And into my right-hand sidebar!)

~For happy family silliness.

~For a certain girl who is so very, very excited to share her new writing prowess with the world. (And for sweet potato pie!)

~And for snowy sunrises.

Hoping that all of you have much for which to be thankful, as well.

It's almost that time again...

candles from the first week of advent -- taken last year

With December 1 (and Advent) only 13 days away (really?!), I thought I'd re-direct you to my posts on celebrating Advent from last year. They are still my most commonly googled posts, so I'm guessing that there are a fair number of you who will be interested. ;)

Celebrating Advent :: Part 1 ~ This post talks about the tradition of the advent calendar, why I think it's valuable, some links to different ones that you can make yourself, and how we make it work in our home.

Celebrating Advent :: Part 2 ~ This post is the long list of suggestions of what to actually put into the advent calendar once you've made one. (Some of these ideas might also be useful to those of you looking for simple stocking stuffers or Hannukkah gifts.)

While autumn really might be my favorite season, nothing compares to the time of year we're entering. The more we can keep it fun and simple and not overwhelming -- for everyone involved -- the better. That's what I hoped to capture in these advent posts, and it's what I wish for most dearly for my own family. I hope to have shared a bit of that gift with all of you through these posts.

PS: Yesterday was my two-year blogaversary! I pretty much forgot it was coming up, with all this pregnancy that's been going on around here, so I didn't plan a givaway. But I want to thank each of you so, so much for taking time out of your own lives to stop in for a few minutes and catch up with me here. Thank you all from the bottom of my heart. xoxox

Martinmas...

Thank you all so much for your sweet comments on my last post. Marking the seasons with festivals has become so much a part of our lives, that I can't imagine not finding a way to "make it work", no matter how ill I feel. I once read some really good advice from a very wise mama on a parenting forum that I participate in, which was to keep traditions simple enough that you could do them by yourself, if you were sick, if one of your children were sick, or if you had company in the house. I've found that advice to ring true for me more than once. ;)

Anyway, here are some photos from our Martinmas celebration last week .... I wish they were better -- even my "fancy" camera has a hard time when the only light is from lanterns! The lanterns glowed so beautifully, I don't think a photo could do them justice.

That I may bear a light...

Today is the festival of Martinmas. It is definitely my favorite of the lesser-known festivals that our family celebrates. It's a Christian festival -- more commonly celebrated today in some European countries, I understand -- that commemorates St. Martin of Tours, a Roman soldier who (dramatically!) sliced his cloak in two to share with a beggar. Later, he dreamt that the beggar was Christ and became a monk.

The festival has also come to be associated with light. It is a time to remind ourselves, as we enter the darkest time of the year, to anticipate the coming of the "light of the world" at Christmas. This element felt very important to me when we celebrated Martinmas two years ago, as I was coming out of severe depression. Since then, I have come to regard Martinmas very highly -- for me, it has really become a time of reflection.

There are many traditions associated with Martinmas, and we have our favorites that we like to incorporate -- and each year, as with all the festivals of the year when our children are small, something new is added, as well.

This morning, my children awoke at dawn to find four gifts beside their beds: an apple, an orange, a piece of chocolate, and and new handknit from Mama. Later, we'll drop off a clothing donation to a charity that supports teen moms. At dinner, we'll have our daily bread in the shape of muffins, which we'll split in two and share with one another to commemorate St. Martin's act of sharing (this idea is new this year, shared by Donna), and after dinner, we'll take our homemade lanterns (shown throughout this post), and walk around our neighborhood by candlelight, singing Martinmas songs.

(That's my knitting in green, and Elisabeth's in pink! We have a new knitter in our house, and I need to devote a couple of posts to it in the upcoming weeks.)

Anyway, yesterday was the busiest day I've spent in a long, long time. I find myself thinking, "One day soon, I'll be having a good day (sickness-wise), and I'll be able to get x, y, or z done." Unfortunately, the elusive "good day" never seems to arrive in time, and then at the last minute, I find myself having to do too much in one day (not wise for someone who feels like throwing up most of the time). At any rate, I had a long list to check off yesterday -- from running to a sweet and generous friend's house to borrow yarn to finish off James's handknit gift, to weaving in a lot of ends and adding finishing touches on Elisabeth's (don't worry, you'll get to see both soon, I promise!), to actually making the lanterns for Martinmas (luckily, we had planned to make the balloon-papier mache version [scroll down on that link] this year which are much quicker than the watercolor ones we've done previously), to picking up the chocolate for this morning's surprise (no, we don't have Halloween chocolate left over -- we didn't have that much Halloween candy!). Anyway, by the time I dropped into bed last night -- all finished -- I was feeling more than slightly crazed, and nauseous. But what a relief to be finished in time to celebrate today!

As long as I'm feeling moderately well over the next few days, I'll get pictures up of the rest of our celebration very soon! ;)

Pumpkins, and sewing, and bears ... oh, my!

Ah, Halloween has come and gone. That's a bit sad for me because I love it so.

Anyway, we had a very lovely day -- Daddy had the day off from work, and we headed to our historic downtown's annual trick-or-treat street 15 minutes early -- we were the first ones there (hee hee!), had some dinner, trick-or-treated for a few minutes around our new neighborhood, and then collapsed into bed for an early bedtime. It was a lot of fun, and very simple and small-scale (which is exactly the way I like it!).

My wee ones chose to be bears this year, which was the easiest and cheapest costume I've ever made. My mom had the great idea of picking up these cheap fleece blankets at a discount store, so the fabric ended up only costing about $10. The pattern, McCall's 8953, was purchased for $1.99 at JoAnn during a pattern sale. Two zippers, some elastic, contrast flannel and buttons from the stash, and we were all set.

I bought the pattern in the 3-5 size, and traced and lengthened it -- after lots of calculation -- for Elisabeth, who is thin enough to wear a 4 or 5 in a standard pattern, but needs the length of a 7. Really, that was the hardest part of the whole thing -- and despite my careful calculations, I think it ended up being a bit too long, though Elisabeth thought it looked more "authentic" that way. (The one thing I did not like about this pattern was that the hood was one size, and ended up being too big for James.) 

It was a great Halloween -- just our speed. I hope yours was full of fun and merriment, as well!

Blessingway for Meghan

Thank you for your kind words and enthusiasm on my last post! I'm excited to be back, too.

We have a lot going on around here. I don't know that I've ever felt so crazy! Since I'm still not totally organized, or back into the swing of posting, I thought I'd share a few photos today from my dear friend Meghan's blessingway (which was in July). Her beautiful baby girl was born two weeks later.

The first blessingway I ever participated in was for my friend Melanie more than four years ago. I'd read about them, but had never attended one, and was so excited when Melanie's sister-in-law organized one. Since then, just about all of my pregnant friends have had one. My own -- two and a half years ago tomorrow -- was really special; James was born 12 hours later!

A blessingway (for anyone who hasn't had the opportunity to attend one) is based upon the Navajo tradition of honoring people as they stand on the threshold of a life transition. In the last several years, the tradition has been adopted as an alternative to a "typical" baby shower.

It gives the friends and family of a pregnant woman the opportunity to honor her, to support her at a time when she is probably feeling vulnerable, and to celebrate together as a community preparing to welcome the new baby. I have always felt like it buoys the mother-to-be with a bit more strength, knowing that she isn't alone on her journey to the birth of the new baby.

Some of the blessingways I have attended have been very spiritual in nature, and some have been focused more on pampering the new mother. Either way, each one I have attended has been as unique as the friend it honored, and as beautiful.

Thank you, Meghan, for counting me as one of the women to join your circle. 

Edited: Here are a few resources on blessingways if you want more information!

*Mother Rising: The Blessingway Journey into Motherhood by Yana Cortlund, Barb Lucke, and Donna Miller Watelet is my favorite. I've used this book for ideas and inspiration a lot with the blessingways that I have helped to facilitate.

*I attended a talk given by Anna Stewart, author of Mother Blessings: Honoring Women Becoming Mothers, at the same conference that I spoke at in May. She had some beautiful ideas that I had never tried or seen at another blessingway.

*Blessingways: A Guide to Mother-Centered Baby Showers -- Celebrating Pregnancy, Birth, and Motherhood by Shari Maser has been recommended to me by a couple of people, but I haven't had personal experience with it.

*The best online resource I had seen for blessingways seems to have been removed. :( But it'd be worth doing some online searches if it's something that piques your interest.

Summer Is:

Our wedding anniversary. (Yes, that's the same photo I used last year. It's my favorite photo from the wedding.) So, nine years ago today, on a sunny, not-too-hot morning in August, my husband and I said "I do."

For fun, I thought I'd share nine things about us today.

1. When we met, I was 19 and he was 29. It kind of freaked my parents out a little bit, but they got past it pretty quickly.

2. I pursued him for about 4 months before he finally asked me out.

3. Our first official date was to an Indian restaurant. We now have a tradition of going to that same restaurant every year after church on Christmas Eve. (No, our first date was not on Christmas Eve. It was in September.) Our wee ones love it, and we love the chance to reminisce about that night when we were both so nervous. ;)

4. He proposed to me on a stormy night in late October. We had plans that night to go to a local amusement park that had reopened that week to do Halloween stuff. (You could ride the rides but they also had haunted houses going on.) {Halloween is my favorite holiday. He knew me well to plan a proposal during a Halloween bash.} He says he planned to pop the question on the ferris wheel, but I'm not sure how that would have worked, all scary and shaky up there. Anyway, it was too stormy to go, so we were in the car trying to come up with a Plan B for the evening, and he just blurted it out and pulled a ring out of his pocket. It was so, so sweet. We don't have the car anymore, though, which makes me kind of sad.

(By the way, I used to love all things scary, like haunted houses, until Elisabeth was born, when I very abruptly started hating them.)

5. Our children both have family names: Elisabeth is a family name on my side (going back at least 6 generations now), and James is a family name on my husband's side.

6. We are totally boring people.

7. One time we thought it would be fun to make a list of every movie we'd gone to in the theater together. It was in the hundreds! We made the list 5 years ago, and I don't think we've really added any to it since then. ;)

8. We did not live together before we were married.

9. I am two inches taller than him. I usually wear Danskos, though, so I tend to look even more than two inches taller. We're both so used to it that we don't really even notice anymore.

Looking forward to a bit of celebrating today. Hope your day is lovely and bright!

Birthday Celebrating

This is my last post before I go on my trip -- too much to get done. Have a lovely weekend, everyone! I thought I published this on Wednesday last week, but I just saved it as a draft! Oops! I'm back from New York now, but the photos and recounting of the trip will have to wait as I'm still actually computer-less. My IT guy -- er, brother-in-law -- is trying to work on our other one, but for now I don't have it.

Many of you have contacted me about a source for our birthday ring. We got it 5 years ago from Magic Cabin. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like they still carry them. The rings themselves can still be found in online shops, such as A Toy Garden or Nova Natural. You can get the ring by itself, or an entire set with all sorts of different figures. I haven't found anyone selling the peg people that we have anymore, but now that I'm doing more creating than I was five years ago, I realize how easy it would be to make the them using small wooden peg people (I've seen them at both JoAnn and Hobby Lobby, or you could look here), bits of wool felt & fabric, and some acrylic paint for facial features. It would be fun to have custom-made ones for your own family, incorporating your child's interests or favorite stories into the characters. If I were to do it now, I'd buy a ring by itself and create my own characters for it. Alas, I never even thought of it five years ago. Alexis did, though! Look at the beautiful one she created for her daughter's birthday last year! (More pictures of hers here.)

I get a lot of questions regarding our family's birthday traditions. For the most part, they're a mix of this and that, but several of the more "visible" traditions (the ring, the crown) are inspired by books like Mrs. Sharp's Traditions and things I've seen around the online community. 

Anyway, we have a tradition of saying a poem before bed on the eve of the birthday. The poem we like to use is a pretty standard one. I'll add it at the end of the post. In the morning, the birthday child awakens to find the birthday ring and crown (more about those here) at his or her place at the table, and the birthday wreath hanging above. The candles on the ring are lit, and we say a (different) birthday poem (this year is was the same poem from Now We Are Six that I shared here on Elisabeth's birthday). We sing and the candles are blown out, and then we eat breakfast. Presents are opened after breakfast, and the crown is worn for much of the day. Beyond that, our birthday celebrations change from year to year, depending on the schedules of grandparents, and the day of the week. The birthday child gets to choose our dinner, of course. We like our celebrations special and full of family traditions, but simple at the same time. I once heard another mother say that before you start a tradition, you should make sure it's something you could do if you were sick, if your child were sick, if you were traveling, and ... something else. You get the point. I think it's so easy to bite off more than you can chew when it comes to celebrating. It's probably better to one small tradition at a time. (Sometimes I'm better at following my own advice than others.)

I'll leave you with our favorite "birthday eve" poem:

When I have said my evening prayer,
And my clothes are folded on the chair,
And mother switches off the light,
I'll still be ___ years old tonight.

But from the very break of day,
Before the children rise and play,
Before the darkness turns to gold,
Tomorrow, I'll be ___ years old.

___ kisses when I wake,
___ candles on my cake.*

*I don't know the author of this poem, it is listed anonymously in several books I have referenced over the last several years. But if the author of the poem is known to anyone, I will happily give credit here!

Six is Super!

We've been having so much fun celebrating our six-year-old's birthday over the last several days. Thank you all so much for your sweet birthday wishes for her, as well. She has loved hearing them as they've come in -- as have I!

We had a super fun, simple, homemade birthday party with some little friends on Saturday. The kids enjoyed it, but I am making a note to self that this is the last time I will be the only adult at a birthday party, especially one that includes two two-year-olds in attendance!

Goodie bags with tags featuring the six-year-old theme. (Contents described here.)

Watercolor paper kites -- a simple, fun project, with the surprise bonus that the kites actually caught a gust of wind pretty well. I was standing outside with one, just holding the string, and it was actually flying up in the air. Who knew?

Wet felting some balls. My kids love to felt, and being the wool and felt lover that I am, we have done it a lot. It was pretty tricky to get a whole group of kids set up with it when I was the only adult, though.

Elisabeth and James with their kites later in the day. So fun and satisfying!

Lots more photos of the six-year-old weekend here.

{We are still without our regular computer. I'm "borrowing" my husband's work laptop -- having located the installation disk with my camera software on it just in time for birthday photos on Thursday! I have no idea if the photos look bad or not, though. The color on the teeny, tiny laptop screen is awful, and depending on the angle, everything looks either really dark or really bright. So, hopefully they're OK from where you sit.}

Six Years Old!

              When I was One,
              I had just begun.

              When I was Two,
              I was nearly new.

              When I was Three,
              I was hardly Me.

              When I was Four,
              I was not much more.

              When I was Five,
              I was just alive.

But now I am Six, I'm as clever as clever.
So I think I'll be six now for ever and ever.

-from Now We are Six by A. A. Milne

{A final note to add that this is my favorite poem of all time.}

Two years old!

My baby is two today.

I think, for me, anyway, that these days always sneak up and take us by surprise. We knew his birthday was coming, definitely. Despite getting a little bit behind, and having colds all weekend, we had gifts prepared for him, including handmade gifts from Mama and from Elisabeth. And I've been thinking about the fact that he's been with us for two whole years now quite a bit lately. He's actually been saying he's two for a couple of months now.

But, I still find that the real significance of the birthday is just not that apparent until the day actually arrives. Not until the birthday child awakens. Sometimes they know that it's their birthday right away, and sometimes they have to be reminded.

And then, there are the Birthday Traditions. The candles in the ring to be blown out, a crown to be worn all day (except he doesn't like to wear it, but that's OK, too), the birthday poem to be said, the gifts to be opened right after breakfast.

So, now I'm looking at my little one, in all his striking "two-ness." When did he become so capable? Where did all these certainties and opinions come from? When did he start playing like such a big kid with his sister?

He's full of joy, this one. Full of laughter, and jokes, and music. I have never known anyone who could make me so happy just by his presence. He can drive me completely crazy, making mischief, but then he'll just make me laugh and forget the whole thing.

Happy birthday, little one. I love you just as you are today. And I am so excited to see what you'll become over this next year.

Sweet

Did you have a sweet Valentine's Day? We did. In a literal and figurative sense.

The wee ones awoke to valentines and gifts at their places at the table. I got the idea for the valentines from The Purl Bee. (And can I just add how much I love The Purl Bee? They're brilliant, I tell you.) I love the way these look, and I love the fabrics here. Perfect for these, if I do say so myself.

Then we spent most of the day with my mom, having lunch and super-fancy pastries at a little old-fashioned Swiss restaurant, then off to an indoor play area (I don't love those, but my little ones seem to...) for the kids to run and jump and play. (We did end up with several inches of snow yesterday and a high in the low 20's.)

We headed home, and I had cello lessons to teach right away. Then some dinner (Mexican food and margaritas) when Daddy got home, and off to bed.

Very sweet indeed. 

The Culprit

I really meant to have pictures ready to post today about Elisabeth's final costume. (And thank you all so much for your kind words about the others! They're really just simple, but she's been so happy with them.) But it'll have to wait, once again, because we didn't manage to take any over the weekend.

Remember my finger crisis of Christmas 2007? It healed up so nicely. Until, at the end of last week, I bumped it into the headboard of my bed when I was waking up one morning. Then it suddenly started hurting really badly again, and started to swell. Unfortunately for me, the skin had already healed over, so soaking it in epsom salts isn't going to do the trick this time around. I have to go to the doctor today.

Anyway, I thought it would be fitting to share pictures today of the thing I was sewing when it happened. The culprit, if you will. I was just happily appliqueing this little t-shirt for my littlest niece.

I have a hard time with satin-stitch applique anyway, finger crisis or no. I think it's because I don't have a clear-sole foot for my machine, so I can't really see what I'm doing. Anyway, it's not perfect. I could use some more practice. But, that Superbuzzy Snow Play fabric is so fantastic (I've decided that "fantastic" is my new word for 2008, by the way), and it just demanded to be appliqued onto a t-shirt for a sweet little girlie.

I loved the idea of this little wrist detail, but it didn't turn out as well as I wanted because I did it after the finger injury and I was really jumpy the whole time.

I also made these little button bobbie pins for both nieces, having seen them around quite a bit. They are so cute, and made perfect package toppers. (We opted for The Daring Book for Girls for our older niece, not an applique t-shirt.)

A shot of my little niece in the shirt.

Oh, and incidentally, I was just looking in my Bernina accessories booklet for the clear-sole foot, and I noticed that they actually sell a zig-zag foot with a guard on it to prevent fingers from being sewn over. Sounds like just what I need! Except the sole isn't clear. Too bad. ;)

What's Christmas without a few costumes?

I know that I mentioned before that I began all of my family's gift making after sundown on December 22 this year, and the majority of my Christmas crafting involved costumes for Elisabeth.

Elisabeth is one of those children who changes her clothes at least 17 times every day (17 is her own estimate). All of her play requires an appropriate costume, and it's relatively rare to find her in "regular" clothes. Christmas brings all sorts of costuming opportunities -- both in the form of pageants to be in and gifts to receive.

Dressed as an angel at church on Christmas Eve

She really prefers costumes of her own fashioning, but I thought that I could add a few nice pieces to her repertoire. The one thing she was really hoping Santa Claus would bring was a very fancy ballet costume. It was so cute, because she'd be in the backseat of the car, or under the dining room table, or some other somewhat private place, eyes squeezed shut, hands clasped imploringly, and murmuring, "I know you can hear me, Santa Claus. Please bring me fancy ballerina outfit. That's all I really, really need."

So, with a solo trip to the ballet shop to look for costumes out of the question given my over-full plate of doll making, I decided to fashion a fancy ballet costume for her.

I picked up the leotard on the clearance rack at a discount retailer (ugh), and used about 5 yards of tulle and an elastic headband (using Coronita's technique) to make a very full tutu. I added tulle, ribbon "streamers" and glittery buttons at the shoulders, and all in all, there was one very satisfied ballerina on Christmas morning.

Santa Claus also brought a "Heidi" costume for Elisabeth this year. Heidi was a favorite read-aloud last year, and it really captured both of our imaginations.

I really couldn't get the idea of a little Swiss girl costume out of my head, so I came up with a simple blue elastic-waist skirt, a red apron with the trim that really "makes" the costume in my opinion, a gingham kerchief (which Elisabeth prefers tied under the chin), and then just a white t-shirt and a thrifted-by-a-friend green wool cardigan. This costume came together really easily, and the individual pieces are really useful for all sorts of play.

There was one other costume, the most involved sewing project of the three, which came from Daddy and me, but it'll have to wait to be seen here until Monday because we don't have any good pictures of it yet.

Celebrating the Twelve Days

Our family has a tradition of celebrating the Twelve Days of Christmas. I don't know how this tradition crept into our lives -- neither I nor my husband grew up with this tradition; in fact, both of our mothers are of the "all decorations down before New Year's" persuasion. But nonetheless, over the six holiday seasons that we've celebrated since becoming parents, this custom has organically slipped into our lives.

I think it partly grew out of our desire to avoid the over-stimulating, greed-filled, disappointing marathon of celebrating all of Christmas in one day. And it grew out of an interest in observing Twelfth Night/Epiphany/Three Kings Day (as it's known in our house), which falls on January 6.

And we're still very much in the process of figuring out what celebrating the Twelve Days is going to look like for us. But we're discovering that it isn't so easy. It seems to be more countercultural than almost any other holiday tradition. The rest of our world (by which I mean our community, and our country, the United States ... I understand that it's very different in some parts of the world) turns the holidays "off" somewhere around New Year's Day. One local radio station plays nothing but Christmas music beginning on Thanksgiving, and on December 26, they stop quite abruptly. I often feel like it would be so much nicer to ease back into "regular programming."

Elisabeth's live tree in her bedroom.

It's challenging, though, when the preparation for and celebration of a season are all mixed together. It sometimes feels as though we're on this crazy ride ... we're expected to prepare for the holiday and celebrate it simultaneously. And it leaves me feeling a bit crazed. It seems that observing a meditative advent is not a luxury afforded to a mother whose job is to make sure that the celebration is ready on Christmas morning. No wonder so many people tear their decorations down on the day after in a furor of annoyance.

And so, we're finding our own way, bit by bit. Leaving our decorations up through January 6 has necessitated putting them up a bit later. Finding ways to draw out the season has been a bit more difficult. My children certainly aren't in need of more gifts. But we keep our eyes open for family-oriented activities that we can do a bit easier while my husband is on his break from teaching.

The farm is decorated with trees from my Holiday Traditions Exchange swap partner.

Sometimes just embracing the fact that this time may be about quiet and peace is a bit challenging for me, but then, maybe that's what it's really here for. Maybe that's the real gift of Christmas. Hmm. Profound thoughts. But being thoughtful, making thoughtful choices for myself and my family, is what my journey is all about. When I was a girl, these couple of weeks after Christmas seemed to be outside of time. We would always get new books for Christmas, and as I grew older and they were chapter books, these became the "weeks of reading" for me. No other responsibilities ... just savoring my new books. And I think my children have this all figured out. They are getting so much good play done right now (as though they didn't the rest of the year?! ha!), and seem quite content to be at home most days.

What I'm learning to do, a bit more each year, is to incorporate some of the things into the Twelve Days that were possibly planned and then missed in the frenzy of Christmas preparation: a get-together with friends we don't see often, a project or craft or baked good we wanted to try and didn't get to. And every year, no matter how carefully planned, Christmas preparation is more of a frenzy than I'd like, and there are leftover things from our list that can still be enjoyed. It's not "perfect" -- and (even more amazing to me) it doesn't have to be!

Wishing You...

Light, love, peace, good cheer, and many blessings in the new year.

I have so very much to share with you all. But that'll have to wait another day. For now, let's just say that I'm very ready for my long winter's nap, but I made it. And now the holiday begins for me. (More about that in a later post, too.)

Merry Christmas, dear friends.