Next Sunday, December 2, starts the celebration of Advent. My favorite time of year. As I have said in the past, we are Spiritual, but not tied to any religion. We celebrate Advent here at home as Steiner taught. Each week represents a different component of the World. The first week is crystals, shells, and bones. The things that make up the earth. The second week is plants, the third is animals, and the fourth and last week is humans. There is a verse we say every night when lighting our candle.

Steiner verse for Advent

The first light of Advent is the light of stones.

Stones that live in crystals, seashells, and bones.

The second light of Advent is the light of plants.

Roots, stem, leaf, flower, and fruit by whom we live and grow.

The third light of Advent is the light of beasts.

Animals of farm, field, forest, air, and seas.

All await the birth in greatest and in least.

The fourth light of Advent is the light of humankind.

The light of love, the light of thought, to give and to understand.

So simple. Giving clarity to the season that is upon us. Each light representing a piece of this wonderful world around us. Each candle counting down the days until the light returns to the Earth. Whether you use “the light” to represent Christ, the candles on the Menorah, the lights of Diwali, or the sun returning at the Solstice, this time of year is about the good returning to the world, the casting out of evil spirits and of darkness and despair. So as the rush of the holidays, with its obligations, shopping, and endless rush for more more more, settles in lets try and stop for a minute each day and remember that in this time of darkness, the light is soon to return.

{this moment}

Inspired by SouleMama.
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{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.

One of the benefits of being a dual citizen? Double Thanksgiving! So today, I gather with my friends here in my adoptive home country and while it is just another Thursday here in Canada, we will be feasting and celebrating and counting all of our abundant blessings. I am so grateful for my friends, for my boys, and for my incredible husband. I love that I get two chances to celebrate all that I am thankful for. It makes me realize that we shouldn’t need a special day to remember how much we have, that we really should be grateful everyday. We should probably have pie everyday as well. Just because really, and a day is always better when there is pie!

Happy Thanksgiving!

It has been a while since we have sat down and really had a good crafting project. It seems that there has been a lack of interest in this house to crafts.They would rather, oh I don’t know, go tearing through the house at warp speed while singing at the top of their lungs, just as an example. Bed bouncing has also been a popular pastime these past few weeks. Saturday, however, I lured them in. I didn’t say anything, I just went about my business. I set up our painting boards, put out some jars of water and our brushes, put the watercolour paints in the middle of the table and then I pulled out some kite paper to cut into small squares. If you haven’t experienced the loveliness of kite paper, do go get some. It is like a waxed tissue paper and the colours are just so vibrant.
 

I bought a big pack of it through Mercurius ( a huge supplier of many Waldorf materials) but you could also try a good crafting store or even a paper store. It really is just beautiful stuff and while cutting it, I once again thought about how important it is to have good quality materials. It really changes the experience.

Anyway, back to my trap. On one of the many times they came running by for a snack or water, they noticed that the paints were set up and almost as quick as I could blink, they were at the table wanting to know what was going on. I had an idea to do something like I had seen on pinterest. We would paint on some nice thick paper, then cut out shapes and then after making a collage of the kite paper on tracing paper, we would glue that on to the back of the cut out.

The painting went well. Both boys asked for more paper so we did that for a long while.
 

Then I showed them how to glue the pieces and make the collage. Noah joined in for a bit, but they lost interest as I soon realized, a piece of paper is quite large when you have to cover it with little pieces. I finished one piece and figured it would be enough for all of our pictures.

I cut mine first, to show them the idea and then cut theirs as per their request. They turned out quite lovely.

After cleaning up, they went away to play again. I pulled out some pipe cleaners and beads to make some snowflake ornaments. We haven’t had any of the real stuff yet so I figured I would ease the longing with some colourful rainbow flakes!

Once again, they ran past and noticed I was doing something. Julien immediately sat down with me, pulled out some pipe cleaners and started in on his. Noah just wanted to make a necklace, which was fine. So there we sat, crafting on a Saturday afternoon. Before I knew it, then sun was setting over the mountain in front of us and it was almost time to start dinner. (Almost. The sun sets early here up North. It is a cruel trick Mother Nature, to think it is supper time only to realize it is only snack time!!!)

I hadn’t realized how much I had missed that crafting time with my boys. I am going to try and have more of it over the next few weeks. It felt comforting to have them there with me working with our hands. It is that time of year to be especially crafty. After all, there are ornaments to make, gingerbread houses to build, garlands to string, and memories to be made!