We are celebrating the Feast of Saint Nicholas in small ways. I’m making a honey cake to eat after dinner tonight and yesterday, on the eve of St. Nicholas’s birthday, the children polished their boots and set them out to see if perhaps some treats might appear there. Indeed, Lucas and Asher did receive some traditional Saint Nicholas goodies this morning: oranges, chocolates, and walnuts.

This morning Daddy said, “Go look in your boots.” Asher was incredulous. “Go look in my boots?!” The poor kid teared up when he saw the orange in his red rain boots. He’s not a big fan of oranges. But when he found the chocolate he cheered right up again and gobbled some down. (Mmmm … chocolate at 7:04 a.m.!) Lucas opted to have his orange in his lunch box today.

I made this needle-felted Saint Nicholas to display for the holiday. He’s presently on our kitchen table with Sturdylegs the Donkey.

Kind old man, St. Nicholas dear,
Come to our house this year.
Here’s some straw and here’s some hay
For your little donkey gray.

Pray put something in my shoe,
I’ve been good the whole year through,
Kind old man, St. Nicholas dear,
Come to our house this year.
(from Germany, and the Winter book from Wynstones Press)

We are also reading Christine Natale’s St. Nicholas stories, which are found on this Saint Nicholas Center website along with lots and lots of Saint Nicholas resources and recipes. I admit I’m editing the stories a bit to make them suit our family. I really do like the examples of Nicholas doing good deeds as a boy; I think Natale has done a great job of relating the concept of generosity in a way that children can easily understand.

Lucas’s Saint Nicholas drawing from last year in second grade.

It is said that Saint Nicholas is the children’s saint because he rewards their goodness (and his buddy, Rupert/Krampus/Black Peter punishes bad children who don’t learn their lessons or obey their parents). Celebrating Nicholas’s giving spirit is good preparation for Christmas, which is why they call him the Advent saint. This celebration wasn’t part of Ian’s or my childhood (funny, considering our Austrian roots), so we are feeling our way into it and enjoying the parts we want.

There is a beautiful children’s picture book by Demi, The Legend of Saint Nicholas, published in 2003. Demi’s marvelous, gilded illustrations present Nicholas’s life and many miracles, and explain how he came to be the patron saint of so many groups. (There is one story I’m not at all fond of, however. I would recommend that parents read this book first, and then decide whether to present it to their children.)

Do you celebrate this day? How do you celebrate?

The piano top nature table was in need of freshening, a new look for this increasingly frosty season. This one features handmade gnomes of several types, an old, lacy white baby blanket, a handwoven cloth that I made many years ago that’s now a cozy cave, hand-dipped and assorted candles, bare branches, and a string of lights inside wicker balls. I love these, and must look for more.

In my house full of boys, this is about as close as I get to playing with dolls.

I read about making ice lanterns on one of my favorite blogs, Ordinary Life Magic, and just had to try it. Stephanie is brilliant and you should read her tutorial if you want to do this. Thanks for the inspiration, Stephanie!

Trouble is, where we live in California, we don’t have snow or freezing temps. But we do have …. (drumroll) …. freezer technology!

Lucas helped me clip and gather lots of little bits from our garden, which these days is looking a lot soggier, muddier, and more cluttered with decaying leaves than usual. Still, there are plenty of colorful bits and bobs to find: autumn leaves, berries, sprigs from our redwood trees, and even a few stubborn flowers still.

Fortunately, Ian hadn’t yet succeeded in his bid to get rid of the old and mismatched food storage containers, so I was able to use them. We had to find rocks to weigh down the inner container. This is when my kids lost interest, so I carried on bravely without them.

First, I froze an inch of water in my large, cylindrical container to make a base of the lantern. Then I set the smaller, weighted cylindrical container inside the bigger one. I put the nature bits and bobs into the space between the inner and outer containers, then poured water into the space and set the whole thing carefully on a level shelf in the freezer. I tested the ice after a few hours and decided it wouldn’t really be done until the morning.

The next day, we carefully transported the whole thing, containers and all—frozen solid—to brunch the next morning at our friends’ house. It was the hostess’s birthday and she is, and always has been, a candle nut, so we presented our ice lantern to her as a gift, with a gaily burning tea light inside it. It turned out beautiful!

Some things I learned in doing this:

* Ice expands when it freezes (of course) and may make your outer container bulge if it’s plastic, so don’t use something you wouldn’t want to be ruined. (A coffee can might work best.)

* Don’t use glass; I used a glass jar as my inner container of one of my lanterns and it broke before it released from the ice.

* You can easily remove your inner container by pouring in some warm water. Just make sure you haven’t accidentally spilled water into the inner container before freezing, for of course, that will freeze too and make it difficult to pull out the inner container.

* If your ice lantern breaks into two pieces like mine did, you can put it back into the freezer (still protected within the outer container) and the broken parts will freeze together again.

* If you put your ice lantern on a plate or flat surface to display it indoors, it will probably slide around as it melts. I improvised a solution by putting down a paper towel first, setting the lantern atop it, and then disguising the towel with autumn leaves. If you have snow, you can put your lantern on a pile of snow, or I suppose sand would work to keep it centered, too, and would be naturally pretty.

Dappled, fading Japanese maple in the late afternoon sun

November sunset

Brilliant pokeweed stem in the woods

Rosehips in my garden

Sunrise over the Waldorf school’s woods

The last of the cherry leaves on the tree

Thanksgiving frost on my canas

Sunlight through the plum tree

We have a traditional celebration called Pyanepsia, which is adapted from an ancient Greek festival. It is one of my favorite holidays of the year because it brings my darlings together for an evening of community, food, and thanksgiving. It’s a festival in honor of the changing of the seasons, from the outer to the inner, from the light into the darkness.

We use heaps of bay laurel.

We feast on fine foods, bean stews, and wine.

We make candles.

This year, we dipped autumn leaves in beeswax to preserve them. Why not, when we were making candles anyway?

We make a giant communal eirisione, hung with wool and trinkets, evidence of our many blessings, in the hopes we will continue to be so blessed. Many thanks to our gracious hosts. xoxo

We have owned this treasure of a book by Jonathan London for a number of years. It is more than a Thanksgiving book and I realize we should read it more often because it’s not just a seasonal story, although the setting is clearly autunn. The paintings are by Gregory Manchess, who is, according to the book jacket, a self-taught artist. (Wow!)

A father and son take a walk in the woods. The father says “thank you” to all the wonders he encounters along the way, leading his son by example. There is no plot; just a nature walk.

“Thank you, Mother Earth. Thank you, Father Sky. Thank you for this day.”

“Like his Indian friends—singers and storytellers—Dad believes that the things of nature are a gift. And that in return, we must give something back. We must give thanks.”

I like the message of this book, which dovetails so beautifully with Waldorf education’s attitude of reverence: That nature is valuable even in its smallest expression, such as the “tiny beings with six or eight legs, weaving their tiny stories close to the earth.” That we are privileged to witness and walk among the plants and creatures of our earth. That we should be grateful for all the beauty and opportunity nature provides. And that gratitude is a practice—something that we work at and nourish within us. It makes you feel good.

We’ll call this a tutorial, shall we? Here’s a super easy project that Lucas and I made together in about 40 minutes today. You could easily have one or several of these ready for Thanksgiving Day, if you’re still wondering how to decorate for the holiday. The cost of this project was about $2. This garland works best hanging straight, with the ribbon flat against a wall surface, counter edge, or the like. I bought 1 inch purple ribbon at the craft store weeks ago. Any color you like will do nicely. Find, gather, and press beautiful fallen leaves. Go for a walk through your yard or neighborhood. Notice all the colors and different types of deciduous trees in your area and pick up the ones that still feel fresh—the ones that haven’t yet started to dry and curl up. I do this constantly because I adore autumn leaves. Some are so beautiful they make me tear up. I looked for variety in type of leaf, size, and color. Any leaves that strike your fancy are the right ones to collect! Pull that old paper phone book out of the closet or mud room. Or maybe a new one was recently delivered to your driveway. I have no use for a paper phone book other than this: Put your collected leaves in the pages, in a single layer. Leave a few pages in between each page with leaves. Cram as many into the phone book as you like. Weight the phone book down with something very heavy, like a big stack of books or a cast-iron pot. Wait two to four days. Pull out your scissors, ribbon, and glue gun. Make sure you have glue sticks (I often don’t). Carefully remove your very flat leaves from the phone book.

Tape your ribbon to your table so it doesn’t slide around. Glue pressed leaves on the ribbon in a jaunty way. Vary their colors, shapes, and sizes as you like, or make a garland of all one type, if that’s your style. Maybe you like the look of all the leaves “pointing” in the same direction. Maybe you like them arranged sort of haphazardly. If you’re not sure, lay them down a few different ways until you decide what you like and only then start gluing. If you use big leaves, your project will go even quicker.

Any child who is old enough to operate a glue gun can help with this. Only a drop or two is needed to fix each leaf to the ribbon.

The hardest part of this is hanging the garland. It is fragile, and you may need an extra pair of hands to hold it while you fix it to the wall, either with tape or thumb tacks (I used both).

Pretty, no? Well I like it. I like that it was cheap. I like that it was easy. I like that we have brought some of those gorgeous leaves into my home. And I really like that Lucas and I made it together.

The sunlight fast is dwindling,
My little lamp needs kindling,
Its beam shines far in darkest night
Dear Lantern guard me with your light.

Last night’s Martinmas lantern walk with Asher’s preschool friends was so magical. We had a sit-down dinner of homemade soup, salad, bread, and pumpkin pie. It was wonderful to get to better know the other families whose children attend the school.

An angel lighted the children’s lanterns with a spark from heaven.

Then we walked through the neighborhood with our lanterns shining brightly.

The kids were so excited to be walking through the night and their exuberance and jumping about caused many candles to blow out. (Thank goodness Ian brought a lighter along! He’s a veteran of several such preschoolers-with-fire events.)

When we returned we followed a path lit by stars and met Mother Earth in the garden, who gave the children precious gifts to plant in the ground. She told us to guard our light and keep it safe through the darkness of the winter.

Inspired by SouleMama {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.

Today is a very full day. We are attending Lucas’s third-grade Eurythmy performance of The Firebird this afternoon. We are also attending a Martinmas potluck and lantern walk with Asher’s preschool this evening. Both of these events are happy and exciting. Both are dampened by my grief over Nana’s death yesterday.

Part of me would like for everything to feel normal. A part of me thinks it’s crazy to be normal—working on freelance projects, worrying about deadlines, arranging babysitting, and attending school functions—at a time like this. But, of course, life goes on.

And isn’t that a miracle?

In the midst of a busy and rich life, we pause to grieve. In the midst of a sad time, we snatch moments of elation and joy, pride and comfort to buoy us up. There is a symmetry there, a balance.

Both darkness and light.

I don’t know what to think or feel, but lighting a candle seemed right.