This whole week we will be celebrating Martinmas in our family.  With it brings the ideals of warmth, light, and protection to bring to ourselves, our families, and our communities.

There are many wonderful songs to bring to our children that exemplify carrying light in the darkness. There are four wonderful songs on pages 28-30 in the Autumn Wynstones book – “We Carry Our Light In the Darkening Light,”  “My Lantern, My Lantern,” “The Sunlight Fast Is Dwindling,” and “Glimmer, Lantern, Glimmer.”

The other fun thing to do is to play with light itself through the beautiful making of lanterns.  Those of us who have been homeschooling for a long time usually have a collection of lanterns made over the years – how fun to take them all out and put them about in our homes and homeschooling spaces and see how long we can use them and not turn electric lights on in the morning or in the evening.  There is also something very comforting to very small children in lighting the lanterns and having tea around the time it gets dark each afternoon.

Now is also a good time to replenish the candles on the table and even freshen our verses for thanksgiving and gratitude before we eat.  Small gestures have such large meaning for our children.  Candle dipping or candle rolling is always lovely this time of year.

Lastly, now is a fun time to play with window tranparencies. I love little scenes for autumn and winter. I enjoy saving window stars for Advent and Christmastide, and Rose Windows for around Candlemas, but little window transparencies are so enjoyable.  Just yesterday I picked up this book, entitled, “Transparent Window Scenes Through The Year.”  I cannot wait to delve in and make a few window scenes to enjoy.

I have some more thoughts about bringing light in on a spiritual level, so perhaps our next post…

Blessings and love,
Carrie