The Magic of Christmas

We have been busy getting ready for Christmas, cleaning out the house, decorating the house, cutting and dragging in greens and prettying them up with bits of red, hanging them on the doors and placing them here and there. We've been taking out the old Christmas albums, singing songs, preparing gifts, cooking and baking.

My baby, my little one, Duncan will be nine years old in a few weeks. He is beginning to ask questions. He is wondering if Santa is well Santa and if it is not somehow the parents but he can't seem to really wrap himself around the parents pretending to be Santa.

He has a plan. On Christmas Eve, he is going to set up a motion sensor and a video camera, well maybe two motion sensors are in his his plan, one near the tree and one near the bedroom doors to see what he can see. (Mind you, we don't have two motion sensors and a video camera.). He wants to wait up too.

Yet I am not feeling certain that he really wants to know or give up the magic of Santa Claus. Angus at eleven was ready. He was clear and certain. There was no turning back. With Duncan there is a hesitancy, a sense that he knows but wants to be convinced maybe that Santa is really Santa.

In a phone conversation with the workshop that makes the elf jammies that Santa brings each year at Christmas, a woman named Cathy shared with me a story from her family, of going out on Christmas Eve with her family and when they returned home, just as they were entering the house, they heard jingle bells from the back door and ran to see, but it was too late, Santa had gone and the gifts had arrived. Another year Santa actually arrived at the house and delivered a pack full of gifts.

Hmn...I am wondering how to keep the magic for him. The gifts have always arrived in the night while the children were fast asleep. I love the idea with jingle bells being heard. And I am thinking of possibilities yet nothing is coming. Have you been in this place with a child who seems to want some magic, is not quite ready to let go but needs some convincing? What did you do to keep the magic alive? I'm so wrestling with this and would love to hear from you.

Christmastide blessings on you and yours!
Lisa

Give Away for Celebrate the Rhythm of Life Program

Monthly Guides are back as through the year program!

In the words of Lisa Boisvert Mackenzie:

“I am so very excited to share with you the news of the return of the Celebrating the Rhythm of Life in Caring for Children through the Year materials.  The new format retains all of the elements you love with some expansion in a few areas. I’ve been striving to keep it all very simple, easy for you to read and digest. I have also made it more process and community oriented this time around.”

December's focus topic is the spiritual element of Waldorf early childhood. We'll talk about the child as a spiritual being, birth, protection of the child's senses, angels, night time meditation and working with the angels.

We'll look at ways to nourish family life and foster child development and bring awe, wonder and gratitude alive, bring children into cooking and household chores, nourish growing bodies and create a home culture of awe, wonder and reverence around daily life that is rooted in the spiritual elements of early childhood during this full and often too busy season.

The material is in a packet (pdf) and online along with the rest of the program. Participants may sign up for the month or for the school year, from September to July. After the first year of membership, year round members will have continued access to the program for free.

With the  December Program you will:

• Receive a materials packet with circle, stories, finger play and movement games.
• Receive an Activities Packet for children with activities for the month
• Receive a Daily and Weekly rhythm plan (if you want it sketched out ~ it’s here)
• Receive a Meal Plan with recipes based on the grains served in the kindergarten (breakfast, morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea) with wholesome seasonal foods
• Have a Step by step tutorial of a handwork project
• Explore the pedagogy behind the focus topic
• Sketch out stories to tell in December
• Receive a Festival Packet for Advent, Saint Nicholas Day, Santa Lucia Day, Christmas
• Consider December foods to plant, harvest and prepare with children
• Favorite book suggestions for December
• Receive In the Morning Garden ( a tip each month for group programs)
• Receive in the packet After school (Activities, Recipes, Stories for the grade school child)
• Reflection ~ questions for nurturing the inner life
• Enjoy a private online discussion group
• Have access to a private website for Celebrating the Rhythm of Life with Children
• Receive blog posts throughout the month on the Celebrating the Rhythm of Life with Children website
• Ideas for creating community where you live
• Connect with others, get help and encouragement through the month, create community, find support, receive encouragement!

The give away is for ONE person to receive membership in THE MONTH OF DECEMBER for Celebrate the Rhythm of Life through they Year in Caring for Children.

To be entered in the give away, please comment below. For additional entries in the drawing, share it, as a LIKE on the Facebook page Celebrating the Rhythm of Life in Caring for Children and SHARE it on Facebook or share it on your blog in a post or a link or in a sidebar with the mushroom "button" linked to:

http://www.celebratetherhythmoflife.com/p/monthly-guides.html
Each share noted with a comment in the comment boxes below gives you another entry in the drawing.

The drawing will take place on Wednesday December 7th and the winner will be announced here.  

More about the Program can be found at Celebrate the Rhythm of Life!

The winner is Mindful Mama!


Mindful Mama , please e-mail me at lisaboisvert (at) yahoo (dot) com

(this moment)

{this moment}

A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Inspired by Amanda Soule at SouleMama

Won't you leave your link below?

{this moment}

{this moment}

A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

along with Amanda Soule

Sunday

Sunday, named for the sun, that giant star around which our earth journeys each year, from Latin, "dies solis" sun's day as well as "Dominica," the day of God.. Wonder if it is related to dominion as dominion over the planets. For many it is a day of worship and rest. The day of rest, to rest the weary body and replenish the spirit with soul full activities, often in community. I recently came upon these soul warming activities, here and want to implement two of them straight away:

4. One evening a week unplug everything and turn off the phone. Light candles, drink wine and eat nuts.

5. Buy two hammocks: one for the garden and one for inside your house.

Just the right time of year to live with the natural light and candles, particularly in the morning and at sunset.

For some Sunday is the start of the week, for others it is the end. For me, it is the turning point in the week, after Saturday's house chores are done and before Monday's school day starts, a breathing point. Which is it for you?

For our family that means a big late breakfast often involving potatoes and eggs and meat of some sort, usually bacon, sausage or ham from the farm down the road. Little brother has resumed eating pork. He quit after his favorite ever pig, one of the three we brought home to care for when they were just five days old and their mother was unable to care for them, went to slaughter. We used to laugh about the three little pigs racing across the floor squealing with delight when we let them out of their pen to run into the kitchen in the morning.

I go warm and cold my love affair with the Sunday edition of the New York Times. This week it was a hot affair. Something about a lazy morning with the paper and coffee warms my soul. Sometimes its the Fashion section or Travel or the recent focus on Waldorf education that is refreshing amidst the strife and striving of the outer world. But this weekend it was the feature on our little cooperatively owned ski mountain that warmed my heart and the provocative lead story in the magazine that piqued my interest.

Then it's off to the woods for a hike until the snow flies.

Happy Sunday!

{this moment}

{this moment}

A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

inspired by Amanda over at Soule Mama

Happy Weekending ~ May it be a swinging one!

{this moment}

{this moment}

A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

inspired by Amanda over at Soule Mama

This Week

'Twas a full week, this one, beginning with Halloween at the museum, followed by the parade, followed by games and food at the Fire Station and  our last conversation with a friend who was to pass over on Tuesday, unbeknown to any of us in that moment that we were exchanging last words. (Rest in peace good man.)

On Halloween day there was The Forest of Magic and Mystery at our local Waldorf school organized by our friend Sparkle over at Sparkle Stories. How delightful to be in the forest of mystery and magic and watch the little faces light up in wonder and anticipation of the Will o' Wisp. I was The Stone that is a Gnome, once my enchantment was broken, I was able to tend my fire in the woods and offer a clue to the children. Sparkle has lovely photos of the event on his new blog, here.

We were fortunate to join friends for trick or treat in a big neighborhood that loves Halloween. I got to help pass out candy which is something I normally don't do because we get no trick or treaters where we live.

The Celebrate November in the Rhythm of the Year Group is forming and what a lovely and dynamic group you are! I am excited for this month and grateful that I am able to do this engaging work.

What a full month ahead in these days of the thin veils, with Remembrances and Welcoming back those who have passed over, a house to build to hold our flame to bring us through the dark, cold winter, the last of the Harvest celebrations, Thanksgiving and then a few days later the start of Advent.

Time to fasten the seat belts, keep it simple and remember to breathe.

How was your Halloween?

{This Moment}

{this moment}

A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

joining in with  Soule Mama

The Feast of Life!

Many years ago, in those days when we were young and carefree, ha ha! my friend Lisa Dombek shared a book with me that was to become one of those books that resurfaces every now and then, and when it comes to my consciousness, I pick it up, close my eyes and select a page. That page always speaks to me deeply. I have perused pages throughout the book just to check and make sure that it is not every page that wants to speak to me in that moment and what I find is that the page that turns up is always the perfect page for the moment.

Does that happen to you with books? Does it work for you too, with the right message or information for the moment?

Yesterday I glimpsed the book and thought it was time for a pick up and peek. This is what came up, you may like it too.

I'll share it with you:

In your joy
you are celebrating God.
You are celebrating the feast of life.


This is not something to be denigrated
on the grounds that there is more to life
than pleasure.
Certainly there is more.
There is an infinity of more.
One is never finished
with the process of growth,
of seeking, serving, loving.
The delights of the physical world
are the delights of the spirit world.
It is all one.
Your human joy will not take you away 
from your love for God.
Love is love.
If you cannot tolerate human bliss
how will you withstand the bliss
of eternal Oneness.


If you were to check into the consciousness
of a rock
you would find a great deal of pleasure there.
You would find
a sense of Oneness that is comforting,
a delight in being a rock.
In the flow of its being
a rock in the state of ecstasy.


Ecstasy cannot be scaled
on a rating from one to ten.
It is ecstasy.
Why are you all so suspicious of joy and softness?
Is this not also God's world?
Joy is a natural ingredient of life.


You human beings tend to be hurried and pressured
and thereby deny yourselves the exquisite pleasure
of savoring your lives.
In this way, a great amount of joy
and sweetness goes unnoticed.
If life is lived with care and attention
it will give you the sustenance
and richness you long for.
Allow yourselves to renew your commitment
to your lives and to yourselves
many times a day.


You feel that because you yearn for the warmth
and the softness of life
that this will somehow lull you into inactivity?
Must there always be a harsh outer reality
to remind you of God?

If you cannot trust beauty where you find it
how can you open your heart
to Oneness with God
which is eternal beauty? 


Excerpt from: Emmanuel's Book: A manual for living comfortably in the cosmos, Introduction by Ram Dass, Compiled by Pat Rodegast and Judith Stanton, 1987, Bantam Books, New York


Thanks Lis!

Link Love

This week brings lots to mull over in the blog world. Here are a few links that I have been loving this week.

:: Over on Lynn Jericho's The Inner Year is a not-to-be-missed video, "Let Them Live in Your Heart" it speaks deeply to anyone who spends time with children, as well as to our own experience of being a child, do check it out.

:: Our friend Sparkle of Sparkle Stories now has a blog!

:: Kyrie of are so happy has begun a series on the ordinary arts

:: Catherine of the bi-lingual blog Catherine at les Fees has a discussion with Donna Simmons of Christopherus Home School Curriculum

:: My warm thanks to my friend Carrie over at The Parenting Passageway for sharing the two above links this week

:: My friend Liza needs a blog......hmmnnn Liza maybe...? (maybe I'd better say I'd love to read my friend Liza's blog if she had one ~ hint, hint)


Happy weekend dear friends!

Halloween is Coming!

Halloween is coming, then we'll see

Faces in the windows smiling at me

Pumpkins on the door step shining bright

Oh, we'll have a good time on Halloween night!

Bobbing for red apples tis such fun.
Then we’ll come a-calling on the run
All dressed up in costumes such a sight
Oh, we'll have a good time on Halloween night!
Oh, we'll have a good time on Halloween night!

I think I told you last year that Halloween is and has always been one of my favorite holidays. My Mom tells great stories of Halloween from when she was a child during the depression, of mischief and pranks and a night that belonged to the children. I have fond memories of bundling up and going out with our wagon lined with an army blanket though the crisp fallen leaves in our neighborhood in the dark night in Maine.

We are busy preparing for Halloween, working on a spaceman costume. Over the years, the boys have been a gnome, pumpkin, a Continental Micronesia airplane, a lamb, a cowboy, Harry Potter, a wizard, a ghost, baker, prince, knight, Robin Hood, and a hippie.

Do you know about the story of the Sugar Sprite? It's one I have mixed feelings about. 

On one hand, the candy load can be enormous on Halloween. On the other, it's one day out of the year, it's fun for children to collect their candy, return home, dump out their treasure trove and sort through it and eat from it. Often there are trades to be made that require careful negotiation between the children. 

Allowing children to eat their fill on Halloween day is one way they can learn to set some limits for themselves, and learn to appreciate moderation if they over indulge. Limits can be set determined how many pieces may be eaten each day and when in the days following Halloween. 

The Sugar Sprite

Halloween is coming and parents often want to avoid the huge consumption of candy that comes with trick or treat. I heard this story many years ago, tried it out with my children and it fell flat. We'd had too many years of trick or treat without the Sugar Sprite behind us. 

I like that is has the potential to create a satisfying picture for the children and helps to manage the sugar load. The gesture of helping is one I appreciate too. For those who are seeking such a story, here it is:

As the days grow shorter and the nights grow longer and darker, the Old North Wind comes to visit and brings gusts of cold breezes. They blow, they blow.

The buzzing bees have gone to sleep, in their cozy warm hives.

Mother Earth has tucked the Flower Children into their beds, deep in the warm earth. They go to sleep in the ground and no longer make sweet pollen for the Sugar Sprite to eat.

Father Sun is snuggled up in the clouds as the days get colder and darker.

We put on our woolies, caps and warm sweaters, to keep ourselves warm and we cover the flower children and bulbs with layers of warm earth and mulch to keep them warm.

The Sugar Sprite is cold too. "Brrrr… how cold it is," she declares as she wraps her arms around herself to her her warm. She doesn't need warm caps, and woolies, and sweaters to keep her warm for she is warmed by the nectar from the blossoms and bees.

She needs sweet nectar and sugar to stay warm through the cold of winter.

The flower children who offer the pollen from their blossoms have gone to sleep, deep in the earth, and the bees who carry it from place to place have gone to sleep in their hives.

Oh dear, the Sugar Sprite has no sweet pollen to keep her warm. Hmnnm…. "whatever shall we do, I wonder."

"I've got it!, we can help the Sugar Sprite. We can share our Halloween candy with her.

At Halloween, our neighbors and friends give us lots of candy, far more candy than we need.

So when we return from trick or treating, we may sample some candy and put aside our very favorites.  The rest we can leave on the doorstep for the Sugar Sprite with this verse:

 Sugar Sprite, Queen tonight

 Need sugary treats for your heart's delight?

Come to my doorstep, candy awaits,

Linger not at the garden gate.

Sugary sweets to warm you well,

to help you weave your magic spell.

Winter days are coming soon,

Keep warm 'til next Halloween moon.

During the night, when the children are fast asleep, the friendly Sugar Sprite comes, takes the candy and leaves a simple gift of thanks. The Sugar Sprite knows what all children like, but sometimes the children write letters or make pictures for the sprite about a week before Halloween so she doesn’t get confused as you can imagine she has to visit a lot of children to collect enough sugar to keep her warm through the coming winter.

We're holding off on carving the pumpkins because the rain disintegrates them if it comes after we've carved them.

What are you doing for Halloween? Any fun costume ideas you'd like to share? Say hello and leave a link below to your Halloween activities. I love to hear from you.