Poetry

Paul has long been a poetry buff, and one thing he enjoys is teaching poetry to whichever of the kids seem interested at the moment. Mostly as a stalling tactic, I think, Finn enjoys spending some time quoting poetry with Daddy at bedtime. I was able to capture him saying parts of 2 different poems the other night, although he did get a bit silly since the camera was pointed his direction. Have you ever seen anything so sweet?

The Tiger by William Blake

TIGER, tiger, burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

The Wasteland by T.S. Eliot

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain.

Winter kept us warm, covering

Earth in forgetful snow, feeding

A little life with dried tubers.

December nature table and WIP Wednesday

Our nature table seems ever-morphing this month, moreso than other parts of the year. I change our nature card weekly, and swap out some of our wooden figures as Christmas grows closer.

This week, my favorite card for this season, by Marjan Van Zeyl.

And this adorable little Holly Gnome by Rjabinnik on etsy. She is so sweet and brings much joy to our little corner of nature.

For my WIP, I'm plugging along on Finn's sweater. The completed front is now attached to the completed back.

And I'm 3/4 of the way through the first sleeve. My problem now is that I've run out of the dark brown yarn. I bought the exact amount specified by the pattern, but that was clearly not enough. And, the yarn is on backorder at Knit Picks until Friday. Argh! Did I mention this sweater was supposed to be for Finn's birthday? Fortunately, we aren't celebrating his birthday until the weekend of New Year's so assuming the yarn hurries to me quite speedily, I may still have a shot of finishing.

Festival of Lights

We took some time this evening out of our busy holiday schedule to drive a couple of towns over to see the Festival of Lights. Such a nice, relaxing thing to do, just ride in the car while ooh-ing and ah-ing over the beautiful lights displays. This festival has more than 100 displays, many of them move, race, or chase each other, and more than 1 million lights total. Truly an amazing sight to behold!

Finn's first trip to the Festival of Lights,
and he was most impressed by the tunnels.

I hope you find some light to fill your evenings over the next week until the days begin to grow longer again.

PS. Jessica, I definitely think this qualifies as finding merriment. ;)

makin' cookies

Finn and I went over to our friends' house today for a gingerbread cookie-makin' play date. Of course, once we got there, Finn instantly became too wrapped up in all the new toys to bother with helping make cookies.

So his friend, Grady, industriously smoothed flour all over the counter to keep the dough from sticking.

And Finn decided he was ready to help for a bit.

Finn and Grady cut lots and lots of cookies.

Then the wooden trucks and trains came out.

So goes makin' cookies with a pair of almost 3 year olds. :)

a visit to Bethlehem

A church in our area has a walk through Bethlehem and living nativity every year. We decided to take Finn for the first time this year since, at almost 3, he's old enough to start understanding why we celebrate Christmas.

Finn had an ideal spot on daddy's shoulders.

We were able to walk through the recreated town of Bethlehem and see how it might have been during that time.

We paid our taxes to the collector.

And saw the various day-laborers at work.

We saw some merchants keeping shop, selling pottery and oil.

Of course, the nativity area was too crowded to get any good pictures, but Finn was intrigued asking every 3 seconds, "is that baby Jesus?"

At the end of our trek through Bethlehem, Finn ate some Moravian cookies (a local favorite) under the lit Christmas trees. It was a special time, indeed.

So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. ~ Luke 2:4-7

More Holiday Books

Our family loves books. I think I've mentioned that a few times. Last year about this time, I showed you some of the books in our holiday book basket. Our seasonal book basket is such an integral part of moving through the seasons for our family. Although I'll gradually move more winter books into the basket once solstice arrives, Christmas is the only holiday of the year which has it's own separate stack of books.

In the last few weeks, I've discovered 2 books which have been added to our holiday book basket which I thought were worth sharing. The prose or rhythm and language of children's books is certainly important to me. I'm actually a bit of a children's book snob. (There are SO many children's books available now, why should we read sub-par ones?) Almost as much as I love a good children's read-aloud, I love good illustrations. My kids tend to agree. (We are an art family, after all!) My 10 and almost 9 year olds still read picture books, more than most kids their age. Therefore, I will occasionally buy children's books simply because the illustrations speak to me, as was the case for both of these books.

This first book, Winter Lights, by Anna Grossnickle Hines, is illustrated entirely using quilts made by the author. Two of the quilts, including the solstice quilt, used 8,450 triangles and took 400 hours to sew. The results are amazing, and I especially appreciate the inclusion of nearly every winter holiday, including Christmas, Solstice, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Santa Lucia, with all the illustrations centered around the light of that holiday.

The second book, Bethlehem, by Fiona French, uses text of the Bible (both a Protestant and Catholic version are available) and illustrations based on English cathedral stained glass windows. The illustrations remind me so much of being able to look around those old churches in Europe, St. Paul's in London or St. Peters in Rome. I enjoy being able to introduce my kids to stained glass art, specifically religious stained glass art, using this medium.

What holiday books are speaking to you this season?

felted Christmas bells

Last week, there were many comments on my WIP Wednesday post asking for the pattern for the little felted bells. I aim to please...

felted Christmas bells

Materials:

Size 4 US double pointed needles

blunt embroidery needle

50 grams fingering weight wool yarn in red (not superwash wool) - 50 grams will make 8-10 bells

3/8 inch steel craft bells

2 strands of DMC floss in matching red

Instructions:

CO 26 sts. onto 3 needles; 9 on needle 1, 9 on needle 2, and 8 on needle 3

Join in the round being careful not to twist.

Knit 3 rows.

On the 4th row, k2tog, k11, k2tog, k11. This should give you 8 st on each needle.

Knit 10 rows.

Begin decrease as follows:

*K2, k2tog; rep from *

*K1, k2tog; rep from *

K2tog until 6 st remain and fasten off.

Place inside mesh laundry bag and wash in hot water in washing machine with a pair of jeans to agitate for approximately a 30 min wash cycle until bell is medium felted. At the end of washing, shape bell and allow to dry for several hours. With blunt embroidery needle, thread a 6 inch piece of yarn through the top of bell and tie inside bell. Using a sewing needle, thread a strand of floss through bell and hang so that steel bell falls just under the bottom of felted bell. Hang on your favorite tree!

::Right now::

::cloves and oranges centerpiece::

::nativity treehouse::

::gingerbread cookie baking (recipe from Waldorf Book of Breads)::

::mama-secretly-made "I love you" cookies for each member of the family::

::front door fir wreath::

::nature table changes::

Special Ornaments

A favorite Christmas tradition at our house is decorating a fir tree, cut from a local farm, for our living room. Every year, as we pull out the ornaments of Christmas past and relive the memories attached to those ornaments, I gift each of the kids with a new ornament acquired during the previous Christmas season to add to their personal ornament collections. The last few years I've made a point to purchase handmade ornaments for the kids. Last year's new ornaments were all similar and from a local artist. This year I decided to appeal more to each kid's individual interest, and the ornaments were all purchased from different artists.

Paul was gifted this year with a ceramic tree ornament, purchased from Van Wagoner Studios.

Elizabeth received a handmade Russian cloisonné ornament purchased at the Holiday Market in Union Square Park last December.

This pirate snowman ornament, purchased on etsy, had Philip's name written all over it.

Finn's handmade wooden puzzle snowman also came from the Holiday Market in Union Square Park.

And as my kids are enjoying their special new ornaments on our tree, there are bloggers from all over hand-making ornaments in encouragement of a very special mama who is currently battling breast cancer. You can read more about Kelly's story, particularly moving is her letter to her son, on The Wellness Tree, a blog devoted to encouraging and bringing people together to send an ornament to brighten Kelly's holiday this year. As soon as I heard about Kelly, I decided to send the knitted garland, that brightened my home and yarn basket as I worked on it, to hang all the ornaments to be sent to Kelly. I hope she'll have the warmest Christmas ever and feel the Christmas love being sent to her across many miles.