Mrs. Marsha Johnson wrote about this on her list, for those of you who are not members of list, please go sign up here:  waldorfhomeeducators@yahoogroups.com.  This is a lovely perspective on celebrating Easter in the Waldorf Home, even if you are not Christian. 

Here is what Mrs. Johnson wrote:

“As Easter approaches, many people begin to wonder about the role of this festival in their homes….memories of traditional religious practices resurface, concerns about melding two streams of traditions often arise, we wonder about the seemingly cruel aspects to the Christian history of Jesus, affixed to the cross of wood, a far more violent and cruel story than any Grimm’s tale, really.

How do we, as parents and adults in 2010, recognize the fundamental need for the sacred in our lives, in our children, in our communities? A need as deep as hunger, as real as weather, as great as other basic human needs.
Many turn to the voracious maw of the commercial devils, waiting with open grasping bony fingers to take attention and focus into their own mad schemes of materialism and self-gratification…buying gifts, buying toys, buying or even making a literal mountain of things to add into the already present mountain of things that occupy every square inch of giant Mc-Mega style homes. Store windows, mail order, on line, shopping screams at us to purchase our festival happiness and then we sit, in the discarded packaging, wondering where the Normal Rockwell moment went.

Children need to feel the divine, to see the sacred, to experience the feeling that reverence has value, that we can ‘perceive’ the invisible power of the cosmos, that we are held indeed by the larger impossibly infinite unknown, the sacred.

How can you help your children, your class, your community to feel this sacred allowance, this space dedicated to the ‘temple’, the room that has been allotted and set aside for the ‘shrine’? Shall we rise above the commercial and the material and create a real home for the sacred in our festivals and in our homes?

 
Yes, we can do this. We can take a small table and cover it with the seasonal colors, for Easter, using soft chick yellows and golds, along with fresh lily purples and whites, and we can drape that small table and add a few elements that remind us of the events hand, times remembered, perhaps a few small wooly lambs, or carefully made beeswax lilies with green leaves, a small vase with a few easter egg bright tulips, some small dishes filled with dirt and wheat grass planted, and a candle, rising, in a small candle holder…here we can place a tiny dish of thorns perhaps taken from the rose bush, along with a few hips left over, bright red, from last fall, that help us visually recall that nothing comes without great striving and challenges in this life, nothing is sewn together without a few pokes from a sharp sticker, we can accept this situation in a visual sense without lengthy verbosity, feeling inherently that the soft wooly lambs and chicks recognize the sharp thorns of the rose….

Creating a special space, and then before supper, to gather in the soft dusky time of eve, to stand before this space and light the candle and quietly speak of old Easters, remembered customs, those people who made it all happen, how it was to find a hand made sugar egg with a scene inside on the table every Easter morning, how it was to rise before sunrise to go to the service on the hill in the dark, how it felt to sit with the Passover table and how grand-dad made everyone laugh with his antics, how sweet the dishes were, how the country home or the city apartment resonated with our love and those loved ones, now out of sight and away in the starry heavens…

Besides the sacred table or corner, you can also create some rhythms with routines that fill that need in your family during these special times of year: a walk through a deep forest at a certain time, a visit to a recognized holy space or shrine, a grotto, a labyrinth, a special geographic location that has meaning in the greatest sense of the world. Holding hands in a circle and saying aloud a small prayer, a verse, a song, a poem, giving space to individual contributions and allowing children to really feel part of such a ceremony will have positive life long consequences.

Bringing love and light to the children, even for a few minutes, is just as important in parenting as are food, shelter, clothing, encouragement, guidance, financial support, and so on. Doing nothing is really a kind of deprivation in my point of view. Take responsibility as the parents of that child or those children and make some decisions about your plan to provide for the sacred and then commit to those traditions and keep them alive for your dear ones.

Not much, really, to do as some kind of onerous task. Just gathering, holding hands, lighting a candle and a simple verse, can allow the child to feel closely held by the eternal arms of the sacred.
Mrs M

Hope you enjoyed that perspective!”

I added the bolded areas; and I hope you too enjoyed that.  It is worth contemplating for the next 40 days, this time of renewal between Easter and Ascension:  what is your spiritual path? How do you show this to your children?  How is the sacred manifested in your life?

Many blessings,

Carrie

Easter can be the beginning of a lovely forty days leading up to the festival of Ascension.

In the days of Early Christianity, Easter was the most important festival of the year (and it still is in the Orthodox Church).  Easter itself is actually more aligned with the cosmos than one might think.  In “All Year Round”, the authors write:  “There is no fixed date for Easter.  It moves in the calendar between the middle of March and the middle of April, and the festivals of Lent, Ascension and Whitsun (Pentecost) move along.  The moment of Easter arises when the four great rhythms which we use to order our lives meet as they run their course.  When the sun has moved through a full year from one spring equinox to the next, then the monthly lunar cycle must be fulfilled with the sighting of the full moon.  After that, the rhythm of the week must draw to a close.  Finally, the moment which marks one day from the next- midnight- must have passed before the Easter Festival of Resurrection can truly be celebrated. 

On Easter Day, there are several wonderful traditions one can consider.  One would be to have your children deliver decorated eggs to your neighbors to celebrate the renewal of life; this suggestion is offered in the little pink book, “An Overview of the Waldorf Kindergarten”.  Eggs are of course a symbol of new birth and in the creation myths of many cultures the egg plays a distinctive role.  Eggs have also been found in graves from pre-Christian times.  Red eggs are central to the Easter celebration in the Orthodox church and sometimes still left on the graves of people who have died in the country of Greece on Easter.  Eggs are a symbol of resurrection for Christians.  If one plants seeds in a bowl on the nature table to sprout in time for Easter, a red egg could be placed in this bowl to find on Easter morning!

Another suggestion offered in the Kindergarten  book is to work with Easter with a verse regarding caterpillars and all the children go to “sleep” as the teacher comes around and tucks a silk around them and then they awake and use the silk as wings!  I especially love that idea.

Another almost forgotten tradition is the one of the “Easter Tree”.  In the past, it was a barren tree with four cross branches decorated with green and also eggs hanging on them in colors associated with the four elements (earth-purple; water-blue; air-yellow; fire-red).  I actually like this idea for Easter baskets as well – can one include all four elements in the Easter basket? 

There is also a custom of “Easter water” in some traditions.  Children aged six and above can go and get water from a well or spring as their “Easter water”.  Brigette Barz notes in “Festivals With Children” that, “We are dealing here not with magical actions (one can simply use the water for the house plants afterwards) but rather an experience of the holiness of the world woken through silence.” 

In a separate article in this book, Barbara Klocek writes, “…if one is aware and awake, the forty days following Easter can be a time of healing and replenishing.  This was the time when the Risen Christ walked upon the earth bestowing wisdom and blessings…..Can we create the time to witness this wondrous gift of forty days?  To take the same walks everyday, or to observe one place at the same time each day will allow the senses to create a window for our soul to drink in this feast….The balance of the forty days of Lent is given in these forty days after Easter.”

“Festivals With Children” suggests an Easter tree be left up for the forty days with forty blown eggs as decoration; stories for the forty days could include The Frog Prince, Rapunzel, The Crystal Ball or The Two Brothers – all from the Brothers Grimm.  Also suggested in this book is activities involving braiding, weaving, folding paper or working with clay.  These activities have an underlying theme of transformation about them. 

Many blessings on your celebrations,

Carrie

I have some ideas about this to share as I have been reading “Festivals With Children” by Brigitte Barz.  Some people really hate this book!  The tone of it is rather authoritarian, but it was first published in German and I think part of it may be the way it was translated.  It is very true in keeping to what one would think of for the under-9 child versus the over-9 child.  I  found this book for $1.46 on Amazon used, so I think it was well worth that price!

The author’s suggestions for Lent (yes, a bit more about Lent) include a nature table with an empty bowl on it, perhaps some branch that just has buds on it (but I gather to keep switching it out before it blooms :)) and the use of a Celtic cross or such if you would like that as a symbol (but none of Jesus hanging on the cross for the under-9 children).  The author feels it is not appropriate to include a representation of Christ the man on the cross  and writes,

“Great restraint is required when introducing children to Passiontide and Holy Week.  Younger children under the age of nine are not ready yet to take any conscious part in them.  …..The self-knowledge which belongs to Passiontide and which adults go through at this time of year as an inner experience of suffering is simply not appropriate for children.  Conscious immersion into the depths of Christ’s suffering unto death should not be initiated before the time of preparation for Confirmation (age 14).”

Instead, we can approach this time through fairy tales with their stories of transformation, redemption after suffering or death.  The author mentions The Wolf and the Seven Little Kids (I would say depends on your child and their temperament as well as the age of your child for this one, possibly age 6 or 7) , Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White, The Donkey, King Thrushbeard (I would say ages 7 and 8).  My  five-year-old and I are currently doing “Budulinek”.  There is a version of this tale available on www.mainlesson.com

For Holy Week, perhaps the best-known Waldorf tradition is to fill the empty dish on the Nature Table (or some families keep dirt or ashes in the dish) with dirt and sow seeds of grass or summer wheat on Palm Sunday.  We can also bake a shaped and braided Easter bread for Easter morning.

Here are some more traditions:

Palm Sunday – make a paper cockerel to hang above the table for Palm Sunday.  In some parts of Europe, there are processions where the children carry crosses or wooden circles, decorated with bread figures, especially the cockerel.

The cockerel is a natural symbol to herald this coming of Christ, the beginning of the new covenant.

Some families start lighting that unlit candle that has sat on their Nature Table today.  This is also the day to sow your grass seed as mentioned above!

Maundy Thursday – Traditions include the washing of each other’s feet and the eating of green foods.  Chervil soup is traditional fare, along with bread and water for a very simple meal on a white cloth.

Good Friday – this is the day to make Hot Cross Buns.  It is also a day to plant seeds such as marigolds, sunflowers, nasturiums into beds – the seeds are buried but rise to new life.  This really speaks to an under-9 aged child!

Holy Saturday – a day of quiet, a day of waiting.  One can line and decorate Easter baskets, mix the dough for Easter bread (one of those braided breads with pockets is nice!)  or make a nest for the Easter Hare (not the Easter Bunny!  Rabbits and hares have very different characteristics!)  In secret, make a few butterflies to hang over the dining room table for Easter morning!

For Easter traditions and the forty days of Easter, please see tomorrow’s post!

Blessings,

Carrie

I love this quote from “Waldorf Education:  A Family Guide” as edited by Pamela Johnson Fenner and Karen L. Rivers:

“As Steiner writes in “Spiritual Bells of Easter, I”:

Festivals are meant to link the human soul with all that lives and weaves in the great universe.  We feel our souls expanding in a new way during these days at the beginning of spring…It is at this time of year, the time of Passover and Easter, that human souls can find that there lives…in the innermost core of their being, a fount of eternal, divine existence.

If we can begin to penetrate the cosmic significance of the mystery of this season, the rebirth of nature, the freeing of the Israelites, and the death and resurrection of Christ, we begin to understand that Easter is as A.P. Shepherd writes.”…the Festival of the spiritual future of humanity, the Festival of Hope and the Festival of Warning.”

Shrove Tuesday was this week.  This day grew from the practice of obtaining absolution –to be “shriven” or “shrove” before the forty-day fasting of Lent.  Years ago, this was a very strict dietary fast and meat and eggs and milk were used up before Lent started.  Pancake-making and tossing was often tradition on this special day, and I am sure many of you are familiar with the custom of Carnival (Karneval in Germany) leading up to Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent. 

Ash Wednesday began with the practice of wearing a sackcloth for Lent and covering one’s head with ashes. 

“All Year Round” has this to say:”Lent has been kept as a time of penance, of strict self-denial, and for contemplating the sufferings and temptations of Jesus Christ as he fasted forty days in the wilderness.  Nowadays, the imposed strictness of Lent has been largely relaxed, and more emphasis placed on using the time to strengthen the inner life through spiritual education or appropriate self-discipline.  The long fasts of Lent and Advent were once used to make pilgrimages or “progresses” to holy places.  The word “progress implies not only the outer journey, but also the inner journey of the pilgrim – his progress in self-development.”

So, without further ado, here are some traditional ways to celebrate Lent:

• Fasting and eating cleansing foods such as dandelion, nettles, leeks, chevril.  In anthroposophic terms, we talk about doing this as an example for children for this season.
• Spring Cleaning!
• Spending time away from outer stimulation and more time with an inward focus.
• For a young child, “All Year Round” recommends spending time with your child each day doing one small thing to develop a Lenten mood.  This could include sitting together and listening to the birds sing in the morning in silence, taking time to look for the moon each night.
• Decor:   a small unlit candle, bare twigs on the Nature Table, a bowl of dry earth or ashes on the Nature Table (you could plant seeds there on Palm Sunday so something grows during Holy Week).
• Celebrate “Mothering Sunday” –the fourth Sunday in Lent was traditionally  when young people working away from home were given the day off to visit their mothers.  Traditional gifts include Sinnel Cake (like a fruit cake) and violets. 

Some of the traditions we have include eating pancakes on Fat Tuesday (Shrove Tuesday), setting up our Nature Table as above, eating cleansing food and reducing certain components of our diet, participating in a Bible study for Lent (this year I am studying a part of the book of Psalms), reducing computer time and spending more time together as a family.

One craft to consider for yourself this time of year is wet- on- wet watercolor painting.  I painted the other night for an hour or so, making purple from red and blue.  It is very meditative and calming to do this, and the pictures you paint can then be cut into crosses for your Nature Table, or you can make a transparent part in your paintings with tissue paper of different colors. 

I will be writing a separate post regarding the celebration of  Palm Sunday and the Holy Week leading up to Easter Sunday.

Many blessings,

Carrie

You thought this month was going to be all Valentine’s Day?  Well, no, because today my wonderful friend came over and brought her Chinese heritage with her to help us ready our house for the Chinese New Year!

The first thing we did was to make Pearl Balls – which are essentially ground pork mixed with fresh water chestnuts (the fresh ones are a different creature than those things in a can!), scallions, soy sauce, kosher salt, ginger and garlic – made into balls and rolled in gelatinous rice.  Then you steam them in one of those tiered bamboo steamers over a wok  for about an hour and half.  You dip them in a dipping sauce made from soy sauce, balsamic vinegar, hot chili pepper sesame oil and ginger, garlic and scallions and eat them with your chopsticks!  Yum!

Whilst those were steaming, we were busy writing Chinese characters for good luck on red construction paper to put on our front door, listening to my friend count from  one to 10 in Mandarin, hearing a story about the Kitchen God, and  then making these sweet little Chinese tissue paper crafts…. We also had a great time looking up what year everyone was born and what animal that corresponded to on the Chinese Zodiac and such.  Good times!

Other traditions my friend passed on to me, is that the traditional meal on Chinese New Year’s consists of having foods that are as whole as possible (for example, a whole fish steamed in the bamboo steamer with the head and tail on; you can use your chopsticks to poke around and  eat it); having noodles for long life and health; not sweeping  or cleaning anything on the Chinese New Year (because you don’t want to sweep your good luck or good fortune out the door as well!); having your children stay up as late as possible on the night before Chinese New Year because this ensures the parents will live a long life; and making lots of noise on the Chinese New Year to scare any evil spirits away.  What fabulous traditions and what fun to sit around and talk about!

Here are a few books that may be of assistance to you as you plan your own Chinese New Year’s celebration:

http://www.amazon.com/Moonbeams-Dumplings-Dragon-Boats-Activities/dp/0152019839/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1265737650&sr=1-1

and here:  http://www.amazon.com/1-Go-Huy-Voun-Lee/dp/080506205X/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpi_2

For more from a Waldorf point of view, please see over at Our Little Nature Nest here:  http://naturenest.wordpress.com/2010/02/08/songs-on-sunday-gung-hay-fat-choy-happy-chinese-new-year/

Please leave your favorite Chinese New Year’s tradition in the comment box below!

Many blessings,

Carrie

This is a festival that is new to many people, and really can be two separate days and in that regard can be a bit confusing.

February 1st is the day to honor St. Brigid (or Brigit, depending upon what reference you use). ( February 1st also is Imbolc or Imbolg in the Pagan tradition).

February 1st is seen as the first day of Spring.  I know this seems very odd indeed when in many parts of the Northern Hemisphere people are dealing with ice and cold, but within the agricultural realm, this day is the day that marks the days getting a bit longer.  This is a traditional time to prepare for lambing, and usually spring sowing begins.

Brigid was originally viewed as a Celtic goddess, at least according to the Irish tradition as counted in “Celebrating Irish Festivals” and then Brigid became revered as a Saint within the advent of Christianity in Ireland.  There are stories about Brigid as the daughter of  the innkeeper that gave the holy family shelter in the stable, that she helped Mary escape with an infant Jesus by distracting guards who searched on King Herod’s orders…

She is associated with having a cloak of miracles.  In some stories, Brigid requested to have land given to her by the King of Leinster, and when the King said she could have whatever her cloak covered, she laid it down and the cloak covered a large parcel of land!

Here are some ways to celebrate:

• Make Brigid Crosses as protection from evil, fire,  lightening, disease.  There are many instructions for this one the web. Here is what they look like if you are not familiar:  http://janegmeyer.wordpress.com/2010/01/25/fifth-century-weaving-a-saint-brigids-cross/
• Leave out a cloak for Brigid to bless as she comes by that will give the wearer protection. 
• Leave out a bowl of milk, butter, salt, for Brigid to bless as she comes by.  Leave out a bowl of oats or blessed food.  If you leave out seeds, these will be blessed for Spring Sowing.
• Food may include freshly churned butter and braided bread. (Brigid was known as a cowherd and also a beekeeper).  Making some sort of bread with honey may also be appropriate.
• Snowdrops and dandelions, white and yellow, might be festive for your table with white or green candles and your Brigid’s crosses. 

February 2nd is Candlemas, and this is traditionally the day that celebrates the ritual cleansing of Mary after the birth of Jesus and also when Mary presented the infant Jesus in the temple as according to Jewish tradition.   Simeon called Jesus a light, thus tying Him to this day.   There are some stories that say Mary was uncomfortable about presenting Jesus in the temple and the attention that this would bring, and Saint Brigid walked ahead of Mary with a crown of lighted candles in order to divert attention from Mary and Jesus.  Some sources also say that Brigid wore a crown of candles in order to divert attention from Jesus when Herod’s soldiers were hunting Him.  Therefore, Candlemas is celebrated as a festival of lights and also is seen as a day to celebrate the lights of Saint Brigid and her role in helping Mary and Jesus.

“All Year Round” always has such a nice way of putting things.  The authors write here:  “At the beginning of February, when the infant light of spring is greeted thankfully by the hoary winter earth, it seems fitting we should celebrate a candle Festival  to remember that moment when the Light of the World was received into the Temple, when the old yielded to the new.”  Indeed, this day in Eastern churches is “The Meeting” – the festival of the old meeting the new.

Candlemas is the day the Church officially blesses the candles for the year. People used to also put candles around the beehives that they had on this day. 

Of course, Candlemas is also Groundhog’s Day in the United States, and there is much weather lore surrounding that event.  There is also lore surrounding weather and Candlemas in general.  “Festivals, Families and Food” recounts this weather verse:

“If Candlemas Day be fair and bright

Winter will take another flight.

If Candlemas Day be cloud and rain

Winter is gone and will not come again.”

Here are a few ways to celebrate Candlemas:

• Make candles, of course.  Earth Candles are lovely if  your ground is not frozen – essentially you dig holes, put in a  weighted wick and melted beeswax and help give light to the coming Spring.
• Making floating candles are nice (there are instructions in “All Year Round”) and dipping candles is a lovely way to spend the afternoon of Candlemas.
• This is also a great day to make your Nature Table look more toward Spring.  The first flowers, pussywillows or catkins, all those things bring us toward the season of Lent.  Also a great time to make some small flower fairies for your Nature Table and put them out.  There are instructions in “All Year Round” and also in “The Nature Corner”.
• “Mrs. Sharp’s Traditions” suggests enjoying a candlelit dinner and reading a short story after dinner by candlelight. 
• Crepes or pancakes are traditional for breakfast.

Many blessings in your celebrations,

Carrie

I hope everyone had a wonderful Three Kings Day last week!  We certainly did!  I wanted to get this post out about Three Kings’ Day last week, but you all know about life with a baby, so here it is now for future planning. (By the way, here is my post from last year about this festival:  https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/01/07/three-kings-day/)

This is a holiday I just love,and there are many traditions surrounding this day (known as Three Kings Day, Epiphany or The Feast of  Theophany, depending upon what country you live in and what religious traditions you follow) and the night before (known as Twelfth Night).  There is more about all the different customs here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epiphany_(holiday)

Christians celebrate is that on the 12th night after the birth of Jesus, the Three Kings were led by a star to find Him in Bethlehem.  They brought gifts of frankincense, gold and myrrh.  This night marks the end of the Christmas season, and is also traditionally the time to take down the Christmas tree and all decorations (although some traditions do leave the Christmas greenery up until Candlemas on February second).

Many families make a cake for Twelfth Night, with a bean or pea tucked inside it for a little Queen or King to find! In England, Twelfth Night is a festive time for merriment and good cheer! (Wassail is a beverage associated with this night as well).

In Germany, children dress up as the Three Kings and go from house to house to collect money for a charity (and usually get a sweet or two for themselves and their fine singing!)  In Scandinavian countries, there may be a procession of singers led by “Star Singers” that move from house to house.  Russian children wait for Mama Babouschka to fill their shoes with gifts, as children in Spain wait for gifts from the Three Magi.  Italian children wait for Old Befana to bring gifts as well.  French families typically share a Kings’ Cake.

The day after Twelfth Night is Epiphany.  Epiphany is actually one of the very oldest Christian festivals.  Besides the Three Kings, also celebrated is  the Baptism of  Jesus and The  Divine Manifestation of the Holy Trinity and the Revelation of Jesus to Man.  There were some great pictures of people celebrating The Feast of Theophany (as the Orthodox church calls it), where waters are blessed and some people around the world plunge into cold waters in remembrance of this special day.  See here for the pictures for this special blessing of the waters:    http://sttheophanacademy.blogspot.com/2010/01/theophany.html

In some parts of Europe, it is customary to incense your house and cleanse it for this time.  One then writes above the front door in chalk C+M+B flanked by the year (so for this year it would look like this:  20+C+M+B+10).  The C,M,B can stand for the Three Kings themselves:   Caspar, Melchior and Balthazar, although many of German friends say the C,M,B stands for “Christ Bless This Home” or a variant of that.

If you are wondering about the Three Kings, the authors of “All Year Round” write, “In the Gospel story we hear about Wise Men guided by a star; they are never referred to as kings, nor is it said that there are three of them.  An unknown but powerful tradition has transformed these sages (the “Magoi” were Persian priests of the Zarathustrian religion) into three kings, representing them as young, middle-aged and old, and sometimes of three different races:  the African, the Caucasian, and the Asiatic.  They have also been given names:  Caspar, Melchior and Balthazar.”

In Ireland, Epiphany was a day known as “Women’s Christmas” or “Little Christmas”, celebrated with a special meal of sandwiches and little cakes.  Ruth Marshall, author of “Celebrating Irish Festivals:  Calendar of Seasonal Celebrations” comments that “The stable/crib however remains in place, with the three kings there now, until St. Brigit’s Day.”  So for those of you who have Three Kings that have traveled all around the room to get to the Infant Jesus, take note that these things can remain until Candlemas time!

So, what are some fun ways you could celebrate Twelfth Night and Three Kings Day in your family?

1.  You could bake a cake – either a Kings’ Cake or make the Epiphany Cake on page 242 of “All Year Round” or the “Galette des Rois” on page 154 of “Festivals Family and Food.”  You could also make wassail or some sort of spiced cider.

2.  You could make Twelfth Night a night of games and merriment in your family, complete with riddles to solve, puzzles, games.

3. You could take down your Christmas Tree and all greenery.  In “All Year Round”, the authors suggest “If the Tree disappears from the house mysteriously overnight, the place where it stood will appear less empty if a bowl of sprouting crocus or hyacinth bulbs are found there – a token of springtime yet to come.”

4. You could remember Three Kings Day in a quiet way and read the Gospel accounts of the Three Kings, perform a play as a family, and sing songs special to the occasion.  You could also tell a story – the Legend of the Baboushka, or “An Epiphany Story of the Tree” on page 157 of “Festivals Family and Food”.

5.  You could prepare for Plough Monday, the Monday after Epiphany.  This used to be the official start to ploughing in England, and is often seen as a general “clean up” day to officially end the Christmas season.

Blessings,

Carrie

I hope this is the year you are “good enough”

I hope this is the year you have more joy than ever before.

I hope this is the year you investigate your faith and find a faithful community to join and pray with.

I hope this is the year you have the cleaner, more organized home that you have always wanted.

I hope this is the year you fall in love with your spouse again and again.

I hope this is the year you will enjoy your children and have fun with them.

I hope this is the year you will learn some new skills and enjoy the process.

I hope this is the year you will start telling stories to your kids instead of reading them all.

I hope this is the year you are outside and active as a family in all seasons.

I hope this is the year you sing to your children and teach them singing games.

I hope this is the year you draw closer to your own family; your own parents and siblings.

I  hope this is the year you spend time with the friends you hold dearest.

I hope this is the year you take a vacation, no matter how short and close to home.

I hope this is the year you start a garden.

I hope this is the year you set the tone in your home and become the Queen that you are.

I hope this is the year you will be the most gentle parent you can be.

I hope this is the year you forgive yourself.

I hope this is the year you become healthier by exercising and eating healthy foods.

I hope this is the year for all your dreams to come  true.

In 2010, I am committed to encourage and inspire you to do all of the above.  Thank you for reading my words and for all the gifts you bring here and  to your own families.  This blog is only a little over a year old, and has brought me much joy.

In Joy, and Happy New Year!

Love,

Carrie

Reader Juliane from Sweden has a beautiful blog with many activities and stories for The Twelve Days of Christmas.  Here is a link to Day One:  http://frokenskicklig.blogspot.com/2009/12/stars-twelve-days-of-christmas-number.html.  Follow along with me!

Thank you Juliane!

Carrie