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Showing posts with label Saint Nicholas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Saint Nicholas. Show all posts

Thursday, December 4, 2014

Saint Nicholas' Day



Nicholas, St. Nicholas, come to us today, Ride upon your white horse from far, far away. Bring us golden treasure, Fill our hearts with love, Ready for the Christ Child coming from above. Nicholas, St. Nicholas, come to us today, Ride upon your white horse from far, far away.


Good Day Friends! 

Saint Nicholas just finished visiting our house today. Addy, our advent gnome, has been helping us the past 2 days to get ready for him. On the 2nd day of advent we made cookies for him and his white horse. On the 3rd day we made letters for him as well as prepared our shoes for him and set them outside. 

I know that the 6th is traditionally Saint Nicholas' feast day, but the children will be with their father on the 6th and they were worried he would miss their house since they weren't home. I informed them to fear not, that he'd come a few days early this year. 

This year Saint Nicholas brought them all their oranges, gold coins, and sweets. They also got a small wooden pet toy set- a kitty, a rabbit, and a dog. Each pet came with a little food dish and house. Their pets are going to live in their farm house. 

Here are our celebrations from years past:
2012:
I did not blog it but here are our photos of it! 



So here are some photos of our past few days and advent fun. Most of our fun times are had at night after I get off work, so apologize for the poor photos. But that is the reality for the full time working mom gig I suppose. I don't mind however. Life is good. It is calm and seeped in love. Now more than ever I get to focus on quality versus quantity. And the few hours we have work and school free each day are definitely quality ridden. I just cannot get over how amazing keeping our Waldorf rhythm has been through this life transition. I am just a blessed lady. 

As we adjust and slow down more and more, I am able to add back in things into our lives that we had to set to the side. One of those things being more planned craft time. Most of our craft time has been free form based around our artelier using loose parts. I'd like to bring back our water color day, our wax day, and our bread day- after work. I also have more time with the children on the weekends, so I want to plan more day trips. 

But for now, this is beautiful and bright. 

May the patron saint of sailors and children shine God's love and light upon you! 


Day 2
Cookie baking! Sometimes I don't have time to change our of my colonial clothes before we do craft and dinner time! 
Day 3
Writing letters

Finding their shoes filled!

They we're so excited!! 

Sunday, December 1, 2013

Transitions and Advent


Our advent set-up with the advent spiral Pam and I made!


"The first light of Advent is the light of stone–.
Stones that live in crystals, seashells, and bones.
The second light of Advent is the light of plants–
Plants that reach up to the sun and in the breezes dance.
The third light of Advent is the light of beasts–
All await the birth, from the greatest and in least.
The fourth light of Advent is the light of humankind–
The light of hope that we may learn to love and understand."

I was so sad to take down the geese I made!

But happy to make our pinecone garland with the leftover fair trade ribbon yarn I got from craft night!

We're full on into December over here. Out with our Pilgrims and turkeys and in with our December theme of Advent. I swear November flew by. Things have been a bit heavy here lately and I have been struggling to find stillness.  I am hoping to be more intentional about that during our Advent season. If you all could be sending thoughts and prayers my way to help me do this, I'd greatly appreciate it! 

I shared with a few few folks, who asked me how I could do "advent" as our theme all December long, that Advent in the Waldorf tradition is celebrated a bit differently. Each week has a theme and focuses on a different earthly kingdom. The neat about that is that it makes Advent accessible to people of all faiths and depending on the faith that you practice, or don't, you can tailor it to what is more or less important to your family.  





This week for stones we're going to be learning about stones, fossils, gems, and crystals. I plan on wet felting some stones and soaps for gifts with the kids and we have a nice advent song and stories that emphasize our faith and stones from the Winter Wystones book here:

Hush-a-bye, hush-a-bye, holy night,

angels have brought the Child of Light:

All mankind shall gently bear Him;

all the beasts shall nestle near Him,

all the flowers shall adore Him,

all the stones shall kneel before Him,

all the world shall worship Him,

cherubim and seraphim.


We also departed a bit from tradition this year. Saint Nicholas came early! This year he was bringing them their new nativity and I thought it would work better with what we had planned to have him come on the first day of Advent, versus the 6th. Forgive me German friends!  The kids were nonetheless excited and didn't notice him coming sooner :) 



The horse was messy this year!



I think that about covers what we're up to for now. We've got lots of crafts planned and fun outings that I am excited to share with you. 

PS: I am linking up with my lovely friend Nicole at Frontier Dreams this week as well as Linda at Natural Suburbia

Love and Light,

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Saint Nicholas' Day


Today and over the past two weeks we have been preparing and celebrating St. Nicholas at home and in our Waldorf homeschool co-op. When I began this Waldorf journey, the saints days that they celebrate in their schools really intrigued me. A few of them I had heard of (St. Patrick and St. Valentine) however many were totally new to me! I love new traditions and holidays, especially when they have a religious background that syncs with my beliefs. 

In this first semester of our co-op, we have celebrated Michaelmas, Martinmas, and now St. Nicholas' Day- followed by St. Lucia's Day next week. Each celebration has been totally new for me and exciting. Delving into the stories of these saints and using them as vehicles for imparting biblical truths to my children have been truly joyous for me and them. 

The neat thing for Craig and I concerning St. Nicholas' day is that Craig actually knew about it and celebrated it as a little boy when he lived in Germany! He also celebrated Martinmas! So needless to say being able to include him in our celebration, and even letting him take the lead with St. Nick's day was so much fun. 

Tonight we celebrated and had hot cocoa with cookies. Of course we left some for St. Nick and his horse. We also read stories about him and sang his hymns. I think most importantly for Deirdre was our conversation  on specific ways we could show God's love and kindness to our friends and family this Christmas, like St. Nick shows us. She had some good ideas and we also have some planned opportunities. This year at our church on Christmas Eve, instead of a traditional service we will be packing meals to send to school children in North Africa. Our goal is to pack 40,000 meals. Deirdre will be with me that night helping as much as she can. 

So I will leave you with our photos of tonight and some resources that we've used this year to help us celebrate! 

Always, Nicole 










Resources: 
This entire site is chock full of songs and crafts. You really need not look any further.