Holiday Planning

I'm a bit behind this year, usually I'm working out my plan of attack sometime in July. This year I'm getting started in November. I try to spread out the winter holiday freakiness to prevent December 25th overload. We generally start by celebrating St. Nicholas Day on December 6th. We put our shoes outside our bedroom doors for St. Nicholas to fill up. I think that this year St. Nicholas will bring books and maybe a small edible treat or two.

December 8th is the day for celebrating the birth of the Sun Goddess. This is a day for early rising and sun themed art projects.

Next up is St. Lucia's day on December 13th. The girls get to dress up and serve us breakfast. They're still young, so I get to make the breakfast. This year Willa has been using the toaster so maybe I'll just have her make toast for everyone or perhaps she can help me with some baking the day before. I made Willa a St. Lucia's crown a couple of years ago. The leaves were cut out of felt and the candles were needle felted. I don't love the leaves that much, but the candles were very successful I think. I sewed the wreath to a couple of ribbons to make the hat adjustable.

December 17th is the Saturnalia! Upside down day. The kids get to make the decisions (well, some of them), we all dress up  and have a silly party.

December 21st --the Solstice. We celebrate the end of the dark and the return of the light. I always plan to have a party but it never happens. We do get ceremonially turn off the lights at night and get up early the next morning and try to view the sunrise. It's been raining every year. Then we come home and eat an eggy breakfast in honor of the sun. We also get a Yule tree and set it up for the Solstice. It's a great way to celebrate the return of the sun! We also have gifts on this day, brought by the Solstice fairy. Last year the girls got their Waldorf dolls, this year I think I'll give them all a good bath (the dolls, not the girls), and make them new outfits. Rose has been camping quite a bit this year and has gotten quite gray.

There is a Solstice park near our house with markers for the position of the sun on the Solstices and the equinoxes (or is it equinoxi?) I think we'll try to start going and looking at the position of the sun and watching it get closer.

December 25th--Yule! We exchange gifts with family.

December 26th is St. Stephen's day. Love the birds, make bird art, refill the bird-feeder.

December 31st/January 1st --it's the end of the year. Party hats, loud noise -- except we have small children and I like to be in bed by 9, so it's generally a very loud, very early party.

January 6th is La Befana. Put your shoes back outside your bedroom door for treats from La Befana. She was looking for the Christ child to give him a gift but she was running a tad late. We put our shoes out every year, generally it's just small gifts, pencils, a coloring book, maybe a cookie or two.

Generally we do gifty things on St. Nicholas, the Solstice, Yule and La Befana. But because we spread our celebrations out over a month, we do smaller gifts and get fewer of them at any one time and there are lots of non-gift focused celebrations as well.