Yesterday was the feast of Saint Nicholas and we marked the holiday in our usual small ways. The boys polished their shoes and put them out near our door. We also left out some hay for the saint’s donkey to eat. (Lucas left a note for Nicholas, asking for oranges, a taser gun, and a katana; the kid can dream big!)

I updated our nature table a bit, with Saint Nicholas surrounded by some little children. Together we read Christine Natale’s Saint Nicholas stories. My favorites are the ones when Nicholas is a boy because he shows generosity in ways that children can—by sharing what he has, by cheering people and giving comfort to those who are sad, and by being kind and generous to those who are different, disadvantaged, or disabled.

In the morning, we all found some treats and treasures in our shoes. Nicholas must have come in the night! Lucas and Asher got oranges, fancy chocolates with honey caramel inside, a bag full of magnetic hematite stones (gold for Lucas and rainbow iridescent for Asher), and they each got a beautiful heart-shaped agate worry stone. (We parents also received worry stones, too, and I think we need them more than the boys do. They are delightful for hands to find in pockets.) Simple. Sweet. My kids think it’s out of this world to be allowed a chocolate first thing in the morning!

Saint Nicholas also visited all the children at school. He and Rupert brought oranges, cookies, and crystals to Asher’s Kindergarten class, and he brought chocolates and pretty stones to Lucas’s fifth-grade class. I wish I had a photo, but I wasn’t there.

My kids chose some toys they no longer want to keep and we are donating them to others. We have a pile of donations outside at our curb, just waiting for the United Cerebral Palsy donation van to come and pick them up. It always feels good to give away things that no longer serve us to those who need them more than we do.

I think Saint Nicholas must be pleased with us. I am.

Today is rainy and gloomy. We’re getting our first big winter storm in Northern California. So I consoled myself with some photos from about a week ago—I took these on a glorious November day in Temple Park in Fair Oaks. I thought I’d share them here, in case you need a pick-me-up too.

This shadow was really stunning. It reminded me of Yggdrasil, the World Tree from Norse mythology. Kind of a magical, accidental moment I captured. My children played at the park while I wandered around with my eyes mostly in the sky.

It’s no wonder to me why this place is called Fair Oaks. These trees are so mighty and beautiful. They never fail to inspire me.

This is a teaser photo mosaic that shows just a little of what my friend and I have been up to lately. For the last two months, Eileen Straiton (of Little Acorn Learning) and I have been diligently working on our latest e-book. We had so many fantastic ideas and so enjoyed inspiring each other that we kept crafting and writing right up until our self-imposed deadline. Furthermore, we created so much content that we decided to release it as TWO e-books instead of one.

One book is our Advent and Saint Nicholas Festival E-Book, which offers poems, stories, songs, crafts, and myriad special ways that families, schools, or childcare professionals can celebrate the whole month of December with children. The advantage to doing so is that you get a more thoughtful, heartfelt approach to the holidays, with less rushing commercialism and more time in each other’s company while making and giving of yourselves. A measured, calm approach to the winter holidays gives children time to dream, live into the stories of their faith and the season, and count the days of Advent. Children can savor the passing of time with peaceful, delicious anticipation and gentle, useful activity, rather than experience the holiday as a single, frenzied, blowout day that is over all too soon. A peaceful Advent full of simple pleasures and togetherness is what they’ll remember later, not the package-ripping and specific, expensive gifts.

The other e-book we created is the Winter Festivals E-Book, and it’s full of ways to celebrate the festivals of Santa Lucia, Hanukkah, Solstice, Yule, and Christmas. Maybe now it makes sense that we have two offerings instead of one? See, the season of winter festivals is packed with beautiful symbols; messages of peace, hope, rebirth, brotherhood, generosity, and love; and so many inspiring and edifying traditions that it was tough to contemplate leaving out anything. And cold and dark days give us the opportunity to dive into the rich and various traditions that inform the winter festivals. This e-book also offers songs, ancient poems and carols, recipies, rhymes for circle time, caregiver meditations, crafts and natural decorations you can make, and a whole bunch of ideas for enjoying the many festivals of light.

We would be honored and delighted if you’d check out these e-books and spread the word a little. We have poured our hearts and souls into them.

It is our aim to provide nourishing opportunities for families and groups of children at school/daycare environments. Our content is firmly based in Waldorf instructional methods and theories of child development. We value the whole person—head, heart, and hands—both the child and the adult alike. We strive to be original, to use natural, affordable materials, and to create beautiful artwork and handwork without it being so complex that readers are intimidated. We strive to inspire and encourage frequent artistic expression and to share the joy and satisfaction of creating handmade gifts. We are Waldorf moms (and Eileen is a professional childcare provider) and we offer this work with love.

Here are a few “making of” shots from the last two months. I’d like to say thank you to my little helpers and models, Lucas and Asher, for being willing to go along with Mommy’s visions, and to Ian who tolerated my clutter of tools and supplies, my having four different holidays’ décor spread throughout our home at once for photo shoots, and my “Just a minute, I’m writing” excuses. I’m grateful for the opportunity to do this work.

We had been planning a family vacation in Eureka, but it didn’t work out. As a consolation prize we took the boys and the dog hiking in Auburn on Thanksgiving Day. We hiked about 5 miles and ate chicken sandwiches at a picnic table. It was absolutely perfect and exactly what we needed.

Do you ever wish you had a physical expression of all the many things your family is thankful for? Here is a simple project that can be just that. Hang this Thanksgiving Leaf Mobile over your dining room table or in your family room to decorate for the Thanksgiving holiday and remind your whole family of the bounty of blessings that you all share together.

Materials

• white circular paper coffee filters
• washable marker pens and spray bottle with water, or watercolor paints
• green floral wire
• two or three strands of raffia
• two sticks
• sewing machine or needle and thread
• scissors
• leaves to use as patterns (optional)
• pen (I used a silver pen, but any type will do)

Create Your Gratitude Leaves

Begin by coloring your paper coffee filters with washable markers. I suggest you use mostly autumn colors. You don’t have to color anything fancy and you don’t have to worry about white spaces in between the strokes of the marker pen.

Now lay your colored coffee filters on a clean dry surface and spray them gently with water from your spray bottle. Because you are using coffee filters, the water will wick throughout the paper, spreading out your ink. The colors of the marker pens will blend together, making a beautiful wash. (Alternatively paint your coffee filters with watercolors.)

Let the filters dry. Once dry, they won’t adhere to the work surface.

Now, fold each coffee filter circle in half and cut out a leaf shape, using real leaves as patterns, if you wish. You may want your leaves to be all the same type, varying only in size. Or, you might like to have many types of leaves. Cut out a bunch of paper leaves (I made 31).

With your family’s help, write what you all feel thankful for on the leaves. Write the name of each family member and pet on leaves. Write down the material things you enjoy, such as a house, a car, and food to eat. Also write abstract concepts such as safety, peace, harmony, education, freedom, friendship, and health. You may be surprised by what your children are grateful for, when they give you their ideas.

I bet that once you start counting your blessings, you’ll have no trouble creating many gratitude leaves.

Create Your Thanksgiving Leaf Mobile

Your leaves are ready now. It’s time to sew them into a long string or banner that will hang vertically from your mobile. The simplest and fastest way to do this is by using a sewing machine set on a long stitch or very wide zigzag stitch. (You don’t want a short stitch because many needle holes very close together may actually cut your leaf into halves as you sew it.)

You want a fairly long “tail” of thread on your first leaf, as this thread will tie the whole sewn string of leaves to your mobile. While you’re sewing, allow the machine to continue sewing even off of the leaf. This results in a string of interlocked thread that provides some spacing in between your gratitude leaves and allows for additional motion in your mobile. Consider feeding the leaves into the sewing machine in a variety of orientations. If you do this, you’ll create a windswept look instead of a static look that would result in leaves pointing all the same direction.

See how the leaves come off the back of the sewing machine, with some space in between them? Sew several strings of leaves. Four or five strands works very nicely. Remember not to trim your threads yet! (You can also create these leaf strands by doing a running stitch by hand with a narrow needle and thread.)

Next, construct your stick hanger. Cross your two sticks in the centers and use the floral wire to bind them together. Wrap the wire around both twigs in all directions until they feel securely bound together. This is also the time to make a wire loop that will serve as a hanger for your mobile.

You can get fancy here if you want by adding some real or artificial fall leaves and berries to the top by poking them into the wire. Just keep in mind that the most beautiful part of your mobile should be your gratitude leaves. Whether you choose to add decorative items or not, disguise the wire by wrapping some raffia strands around the joint.

Find a place to hang your crossed sticks at about shoulder level so you can work on the mobile with both hands, or get a helper to hold it for you. Now tie your leaf strands to the ends of each stick by their extra long top threads. If you have enough, also tie a strand to the center of the mobile. Last of all, clip any extra thread from the tops and bottoms of your leaf strands.

Hang your mobile somewhere prominent in your home, perhaps where some airflow may move it or where autumn sunshine might make it shine. When you look at it, you’ll see how very blessed and grateful you and your loved ones are. Blessed be!

This, my friends, is Flygon. Flygon is a Pokémon, a Ground and Dragon type, to be exact. Asher loves dragons, loves this chartreuse color, and loves coming up with challenging Halloween costumes. At first he was talking about being the Grim Reaper. I think he got it into his head that big kids go for scary costumes and wanted to do the same, but I drew the line. I think five-year-olds aren’t really ready for scary costumes. So when Asher picked Flygon out of an old Pokédex book, I said yes and kept my doubts private.

This costume is more involved than anything I’ve made to date. It started with some green fabric and some red duct tape. I had no pattern, but I did have the experience of making the rainbow dragon tail last year. Figuring out how to make the stipes on the tail concentric was a bit tricky for me. I consulted with my pro costumer friend Nicole to get her advice before I did any cutting. I bought a white cotton sweatsuit from Dharma Trading Company and some chartreuse dye. That was great because I’m not much of a seamstress. But just dyeing the outfit took half a day. I worked on this costume little by little over about a week. The wings were bumble bee wings until I pulled off the yellow fabric and bent them into diamond shapes. Ian helped me recover the wing wire with fabric and hot glue; we needed several hands. Then we added the red tape to the edges. The tail piece is made of cardboard, covered in the same wing fabric, and then outlined with red tape.

This is what we were going for. Super cute, right?

I think it turned out pretty well! I sewed the tail and stuffed it with a little wool and then some bubble wrap. There’s a coat hanger inside that made it stand up and wobble around nicely when he walked. It tied around his middle and was also supported by suspenders that he wore underneath his hoodie.

I had just enough dark green to make the head spikes. They are stuffed with wool and hand-sewn to the hood of the shirt. He liked when they flopped over his face.

The glasses we bought years ago for Burning Man. I think they made the costume. I really feel that I sneaked up on this costume. I pondered and plotted a lot before I did anything, and I took it on one bite at a time.

At the last minute, Asher decided he had to have green and red makeup too. No problem. I’ve got that!

I love the way he got into character!

I am kind of amazed he was able to keep up with all the big kids that night. He enjoyed trick-or-treating immensely.

And now it’s time to remove the head spikes so he can wear the hoodie.

I realize November 10 is a bit late to write about Halloween, but I’m just getting to it now. We worked way too hard on these costumes to not show them here.

Lucas decided to be a Wood Elf. This year Ian read all three books of The Lord of the Rings to our boys, and the stories have really taken root in Lucas’s and Asher’s minds. Lucas didn’t want to be Legolas or any specific elf, or a fancy High Elf. He drew this picture of himself as a Wood Elf, so this is what we had to work toward.

We brought our cow hide out and allowed Lucas to use some leather to make himself some armor. The hide was purchased back in 1991 when I wanted to make a medicine bundle for Ian—back when there was no Michael’s-type craft store in town. I had to buy a whole hide to get the little bit of leather I needed, and for my college-age self it cost a lot of money. I never dreamed in 1991 that this purchase would help us create a Halloween costume for our 10-year-old son!

We lucked out at the thrift store this year and found a green tunic-like shirt. It had vine-like details and some beautiful leaf and vine embroidery on it. At first Lucas was nervous about the few flower details on it. He didn’t want to wear flowers. We had to argue for a moment or two, then I pulled out my shears and made some cuts to remove the flowers. I ripped and distressed the tunic just enough to make it look like he had spent several weeks traveling in the woods. That seemed to satisfy him. I also removed a seam to make the arms wider and more comfortable.

For the shoulder armor, we cut “scales” of leather to look a bit like leaves. We fitted this onto his body, piece by piece, and marked where we needed the scales to connect to each other with a Sharpie. Lucas made all the holes in the leather himself. We used brass-colored paper fasteners to quickly fasten the scales together, and we did the whole piece on the afternoon of the 31st. He decorated the armor with a silver paint pen. “They are runes of protection, Mom.” We sewed the leather to the shirt. The whole thing looks awesome!

If we had had more time, we would have made a piece of armor to cover his his thigh, too. We pressed into service a leather belt from Ian’s old Renaissance Faire stuff. Lucas sewed a quiver out of green felt using the sewing machine. His first time on the machine! We used a small thrift-store belt to hold the quiver on his back; he used hot glue and stitches to attach the quiver to the belt.He made his own bow from a stick and string, and his quiver held five or six stick arrows.

I’m not sure why he wanted to wear jeans, but he did. The last piece was a set of pointy elf ears held on by spirit gum. They had to be subtle ears! He added a blue tattoo to his face.

And then, with no time to spare, we went to an awesome party with a few other families from school. We ate yummy soup and went trick-or-treating in a big group.

The kids got loads of candy and had a blast running door to door at night. They all looked amazing!

I’m so proud of Lucas. He knew what he wanted. He worked hard to create it, doing many of the tasks on his own. He was a terrific Wood Elf!

Asher’s costume is up next.

I try not to get too sentimental about my children growing up. They grow. They are made to. They strive and learn and change and discover and grow every day, with or without my consent. And I approve. Most of the time I am too busy being astounded and amazed by their leaps of intelligence, judgement, compassion, and understanding, and feats of strength and skill to be the least bit sad about their not being babies anymore.

These are pants and shorts and pajamas that my mother and I have for Asher to wear. They were sewn for him and made with love (and in my case, with mistakes and a fair amount of learning frustration). They are all too small for Asher now, and I have sent them on their merry way to another sweet boy (and his baby sister) who may get some further use out of them. They are not the first set of handmades to be passed along, and they certainly won’t be the last. Growth and change are guaranteed.

Nevertheless, I was sentimental enough to take a photo before passing them on. These clothes are loved, soft and colorful, and unique in the world. They are special not only because they once covered my sweet son’s soft skin, but because they were created with loving hands and clever tools and eyes for detail. They are special because they were made first in our hearts before they came to be objects in the world.

May they be useful in the years to come, until they are once again outgrown.

Halloween was a big deal for us this year. Big projects, big fun. Today I’ve been so tired that I just felt like trying to put our home back together again, creating some order out of the costuming chaos, and getting back to normal (chaos). More about Halloween later, but …

I meant to make these groovy witch finger cookies on Halloween, but there wasn’t time to do it. I wondered if I could use a similar recipe to create something fun for Dia de los Muertos. Honestly I didn’t know if these would work.

1 cup butter softened (which to me means microwaved for 35–40 seconds after being in the fridge; is that what it really means?)
3/4 cup confectioner’s sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond extract
2 cups whole wheat flour
flowery sprinkles or stars (optional)

Cream together butter and sugar, add vanilla and almond flavorings, and then add in flour, a half cup at a time. Roll about a tablespoon of dough into a ball. With the end of a big spoon, chopstick, or other poky object, poke two eye holes. With a knife, draw a mouth line. With the tines of a fork, make a quick stroke up from the mouth line to make upper teeth, and another stroke down to make lower teeth. With a narrow skewer or similar object, make a little triangle nose hole. Now with your thumb and forefinger pinch the jaw of your face a little to make it narrower than the cranium. Place the skull on a greased cookie sheet. The most important feature of your caldera is the eye holes, so if they’ve become too squished while making the other features, use the same eye-hole making object to poke the eye holes again to make them nice and round and dominate the skull shape. Do this a bunch of times till you use up all the dough. Asher (5 years old) enjoyed making skulls too, and his are pretty great.

Now, if you want your calderas skulls to be flowery, push some flower sprinkles or stars, or whatever into the skulls. Personally, I think a few flowers go a long way toward creating the Dia de los Muertos look. I didn’t put flowers on all of my cookies and the plain ones look pretty cool too.

Here they are baked—simultaneously cheerful and spooky—and ready to eat. They got a bit bigger in the baking, but kept their basic shape beautifully. By the way, I used whole wheat flour because that’s what I had. Because of the whole wheat flour, I upped the sugar to 3/4 cup. Your skulls will look whiter if you use all purpose flour, and you might not need as much sugar.

How’s that for a recipe post created late on the night of the holiday for which it is appropriate? OK, night-night. I hope you’ve had a lovely day and that you were were able to take a moment to remember those you love who have passed out of this world. Remember them fondly.

So inviting, this golden tree, shining in the setting sun.

Impossible to resist, with its rustling leaves like stained glass of every warm hue.

It doesn’t take long for a boy to find his way up.

Stretching and climbing, gilded by light,

into the heights, where no one can reach and he is best and bravest.