Holiday Lead Up
We're trying something different for the holidays. The tree is the same, the food will be the same (maybe), there will still be presents. We're only trying to introduce a few elements to honor our natural world and include a celebration of the return of light and our own inner light.
So far, I'm getting resistance.
From the book Heaven on Earth (Oppenheimer), I had the idea to start a Christmas table to help honor our place in the natural world. (We've been using this book for ideas on how to create our home environment to compliment what Scarlett is experiencing at her school).
Last week, we recognized the mineral world. On a Christmas cloth we arranged items to represent the mineral world-shells & rocks. Ideally it would have included crystals, but our daughter is 4 and for some unknown reason, refused to have crystals. Then we lit one candle.
Today we brought in the plant world-we found and decorated our tree and arranged greenery. Then I attempted to light two candles. It lasted two minutes.
During this past week, Scarlett's class had a Winter Garden Celebration-they walked an evergreen spiral to the light/candle at the center, lit their own candle and placed it along the path. It was beautiful-harp music, twinkling candles and lights, shared food, but it somehow affected Scarlett's attitude to flame-we've had virtually no candles all week since the celebration! I suppose this too shall pass, hopefully in time for us to celebrate the last 2 weeks of Avent.
Of course, we have two weeks to go-with the animal and human kingdoms. We're ahead of the game as our manger scene is floating around the living room, and we'll see if we manage to light two more candles in the next two weeks!
Regardless, our goal is to have a slow buildup towards the event of Christmas, instead of feeling as though we are rushing through this holiday. Our little Christmas corner for this year may be a confusing one, but perhaps slightly less foreign when we revisit it next year.
So far, I'm getting resistance.
From the book Heaven on Earth (Oppenheimer), I had the idea to start a Christmas table to help honor our place in the natural world. (We've been using this book for ideas on how to create our home environment to compliment what Scarlett is experiencing at her school).
Last week, we recognized the mineral world. On a Christmas cloth we arranged items to represent the mineral world-shells & rocks. Ideally it would have included crystals, but our daughter is 4 and for some unknown reason, refused to have crystals. Then we lit one candle.
Today we brought in the plant world-we found and decorated our tree and arranged greenery. Then I attempted to light two candles. It lasted two minutes.
During this past week, Scarlett's class had a Winter Garden Celebration-they walked an evergreen spiral to the light/candle at the center, lit their own candle and placed it along the path. It was beautiful-harp music, twinkling candles and lights, shared food, but it somehow affected Scarlett's attitude to flame-we've had virtually no candles all week since the celebration! I suppose this too shall pass, hopefully in time for us to celebrate the last 2 weeks of Avent.
Of course, we have two weeks to go-with the animal and human kingdoms. We're ahead of the game as our manger scene is floating around the living room, and we'll see if we manage to light two more candles in the next two weeks!
Regardless, our goal is to have a slow buildup towards the event of Christmas, instead of feeling as though we are rushing through this holiday. Our little Christmas corner for this year may be a confusing one, but perhaps slightly less foreign when we revisit it next year.
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