The idea of light and festivals of light during this season is perhaps as old as mankind. Making light in the darkness and the union of light all over the world to carry goodness is a picture I have in my head of this time of year.
It begins in our homes. If our homes are not peaceful, we cannot peacefully connect as a family.
What is stealing your peace?
Is it the physical environment of your home? Are you a visual person who needs a peaceful place for your eye to rest? I think social media is overrrated and has lulled us into thinking people have beautiful, perfect, barely lived in homes but there is something to be said for a clean, comfortable, organized place to rest and rejuvenate.
Is it sniping at each other, side comments, yelling? Some personalities or temperaments love to have the last word, or love to bicker. You can stop it in your tracks by not participating! Set down the rules of how you would like to communicate as a family.
Is there no peace because everyone is running off in different directions? Are you never together? Can you plan for being together for meals or for a family night? Can you include your teen’s friends or your young adult’s significant others?
Is your lack of peace due to finances? That is hard, because the price of everything is high right now in the United States. I have an entire pinterest board devoted to saving money. Let’s prioritize the simplicity of being together over things. And let’s not limit ourselves in terms of beliefs surrounding money or what we can do with our time. Many of work and homeschool, and many of us have teens who are working. The teens in our family always work outside the home, so something to consider is how money and employment fit into your family structure when you have older children.
Is there no peace because you are anxious or depressed? Counseling is for everyone! Taking care of our health is imperative. Hydration, sleep, whole food nutrition, exercise, sunshine, nature. We cannot lead our families if we are drowning. Do what you need to – find a sliding scale counselor, talk to someone, work with a life coach or a health coach. It is worth your peace!
Are you anxious because you have no community? It is a lot of work, but you can form a homeschool group or a book club or a hiking club or whatever it is that would bring you some joy!
This season of light, let’s get “unstuck” so we can face 2023 in a bold way!
Blessings and so much love,
Carrie
PS. I have had a few questions about parenting and homeschooling consults. I am not taking any consults until after January 6th, but do feel free to reach out and get on my schedule. Blessings!
Part of my inner Advent this year is really looking to see how we can bring more peace into our life. When we moved to the farm 18 months ago, it was whirlwind of necessary projects (water and heat, anyone?) and we had a list of a number of cosmetic/flow type issues that would make living here easier. The necessary projects definitely outweighed the cosmetic things, so the ongoing projects are still there for the future, which causes me as a visual person to often feel unsettled. We also began boarding horses a year ago, which took some time to build a rhythm around, and now that we have had a year of that here, our routines are more set with that and I think I can figure out how to fit my homemaking routines with this.
The first point in figuring out my rhythm has been to look at where my time is going this week. Some things have changed since we moved here – more of my time went to animal care and outside projects, more of my time went to driving since we moved further out and there isn’t as much around us and work is further away, and I felt like every day was semi-different and it has been hard to get a set morning or evening routine.
One thing I noticed this week has been a lack of an evening routine. My evening routine honestly has been trying to squish in a bunch of online CEU courses and then do night check in the barn. Which is fine, but it doesn’t cover a lot of the other areas I need pulled together for the next day.
So I am headed back to Flylady I used Flylady so much when my children were small and up into early high school (modified for our own family), and it was helpful. Somehow I lost a lot of the routines for our home and am ready to get back to it.
I have many more areas pulling for my attention these days, so it is important that I get those areas in, but also important that I literally schedule in time to rest, to relax, to create. And, in order to keep my priorities straight, I am taking the word I am using for 2023 (bold) and using that to divide my life into faith, family, work and finances, farm, health, homeschooling. I created Pinterest boards for each of these areas to help me grasp what massive action steps I want to take this year to help things move a bit forward.
I would love to hear where you are now – are you drowning, are you feeling triumphant and productive, are you looking forward to a new year?
I love this first week of Advent, where the theme of this time is the idea of hope. I want to encourage you today that just because your Advent looks different, it doesn’t mean that it is wrong. Traditions can be established and can also change over time to better meet the needs of your family.
Maybe you are setting up new family traditions for Advent. It takes time to build traditions, and it really can’t be done in one year.
Maybe your children have grown up, and you are waiting for them to arrive home for the holidays.
Maybe your children are a mixture of different ages, and things need to change a little bit to meet the needs of all the children and teenagers in the family.
If you are waiting for your young adult children to come home and you feel your Advent is remarkably different, I advise you to be gentle with yourself with all your feelings. All your feelings are valid. It is okay to be sad or to feel a sense of grieving for when your children were small.
I think it is okay to choose some of your Advent traditions and do them just for yourself or to find ways to translate your traditions for your young adults. Perhaps you will send a St. Nicholas Day package to your young adult, or perhaps you will bake cookies later in the season so you can do it together. Whatever fills you is important and you can determine the course of your new traditions.
If your children are all different ages, I think it is very important to choose the traditions that meet not only your small children, but also your teens. Your teens may secretly enjoy the things your younger children are enjoying, or they may enjoy being the keeper of the magic for younger children. However, they may also crave something geared towards their own age group that includes their friends. Ask them about what would make the holiday meaningful for them.
I would love to hear about your family’s traditions for this season.
This is the beginning of the holiday season as we turn toward our inward light during the darker nights. I love this time of year, having a cozy home and being home, and am planning to make the most of this time by organizing for peace. I hope you can join me, and if you blog or are on social media please drop a link to your own household and life organizing below.
You might be thinking this is a busy time of year and feels hard to get organized, but I think it can be done and an amazing way to head into a new year. I know a lot of people whose 2022 was one they would rather not repeat, so what better way than to think, dream, and create new spaces and new beginnings?
I have two threads going on in my home right now. One is holiday preparation and one is preparing for some of the big things for the new year that I really want to accomplish.
For holiday planning:
I am planning simply. I am ordering online for the teens and young adults in my life a few things, and everything else will be handmade. If you want some ideas for handmade gifts, please follow my pinterest board here:
We are decorating little by little as is our custom with Advent, but in the past I found we were pretty late often with the business of end of semester and end of year things, so this year we are starting now and having a more set plan for decorating and keeping things simple. I am decorating with real greenery and orange slices and pomegranates – you will be able to follow along on my IG/Facebook if you are interested in those crafts!
We are planning some fun family things. This time is precious when young adults are home from college and we want to do some simple but fun things like go look at the holiday lights, have a sweet hot chocolate/cookie decorating party with friends, game nights.
For new spaces and new beginnings:
The spiritual connection –My word of the year came to me early this year (it’s “BOLD” because I have big things that are going to be happening next year!) and I started brainstorming what areas of my life that I wanted to have boldness, confidence in. I started pinterest boards for these areas, which will help me make a few lists to take MASSIVE action steps to make things happen!
2. Ideas for the coming year –I have a list of farm projects and although we don’t have a large budget to do some of the serious things that really need to be done, we can move forward in several areas. This will include arena renovations, more barn work, planting fruit and nut trees and gardening, and adding more beehives.
3. The Environment –I am getting a small dumpster as there are things here that the former owner of the property left behind when they moved that we have been cleaning up little by little, and things we have been pulling out of the pastures (tons of leftover netting from hay bales) that need to go! And once things are super organized, I want to organize our space so we can have even more food and water stored. My goal is to be able to grocery shop from our stores and grow enough produce so I don’t have to go to the grocery store frequently.
4. The new beginnings — now that we are settling in and have had horses here for a year and through seasons, we have a better idea as to how to balance working on the farm, working outside the home, homeschooling – so new rhythms will be helpful. Our basic weekly rhythm right now will be:
BASIC WEEKLY PLAN for Holidays and Winter
Exercise daily
Sunday – church/youth group or rest, indoor crafting projects (sewing, crochet, handiwork, mending) and cooking/canning projects, look ahead and prep for homeschooling week, sometimes dinner with friends Monday – work with errands afterwards as needed, homeschooling in afternoon with extra art or handwork, teen’s outside activities as needed Tuesday – homeschooling, after dinner is time for continuing education courses and studying Wednesday – work and our teen has an outside program day, teen’s outside activities as needed Thursday – homeschooling with a break to connect via Zoom to our church’s Women’s Bible Study, I usually have home visits to patients in the afternoon but if not I do outside projects or cooking and canning projects. Sometimes we have a date night on Thursday nights or it is time for continuing education courses or you tube programming regarding homesteading after dinner. Friday – work and our teen has an outside program day Saturday – homeschooling as needed, cleaning and outdoor projects and big chores, sometimes during the winter our teen has horseback riding lessons, friends over
You will notice there is not a lot of prepping for homeschooling in this rhythm. This is because this is my third time through these grades and everything is fairly laid out at this point. I do most of my planning over the summer so things are ready for the school year at this point. Our yearly rhythm still revolves around the festivals and seasons.
Please share your plans and drop your links below! Many blessings and gratitude for you all,
The days are shorter, the nights are colder, and the leaves on the deciduous trees have fallen. We are headed toward winter, a time of deep rest, a time of projects, a time of wonder at snow and lights and the beautiful winter sky with the skeletons of trees etched against the horizon.
We can set up a seasonal table with snow white and pink silks, crystals of quartz and amethyst, glass vases, paper snowflakes or an beautiful Advent tableau with a dark blue silk with candles and gold paper stars. The traditional Advent wreath can come out.
We are moving from a time of mourning and remembering our ancestors, the saints, those who have gone before us to a new year and a new path. We are preparing for what is to come. What are the deepest longings of your heart for the coming year? Advent can be a time of fasting and preparing and contemplating for this new beginning. I have already chosen my word of the year for 2023 (for more on that tradition, see here)..I think this is going to be a BIG year, so I chose the word BOLD. I will have one child finishing college in December 2023, another child beginning college in 2023, we will have been on our farm for two years in the spring, and with this I am making some new and different choices in the midst of this seventh seven year cycle of my own life and also returning to my roots in many ways.
I am dreaming of some kind of Waldorf homeschool opportunity for high schoolers and I am back to wanting to teach at homeschool conferences. Waldorf parenting and education is so nurturing to all family members, no matter what the age. It draws me in with its healing impulse over and over again.
Do you ever feel as if the idea of having a simple, healthy, peaceful family life with joyful and peaceful family members would involve so many things and so many steps that it seems unattainable?
Since I began this blog in 2008, I have had the sole mission of helping families find peaceful parenting in a hectic world. We began homeschooling because we wanted our children to be healthy, so the mission of The Parenting Passageway has expanded slightly over the years to include the ideas of developmental parenting and health leading to peace, and now I even have more ideas about simple living and homesteading for peace and health since we have moved to our farm in 2021.
It sounds like a lot, but it always comes back to what is healthy also promotes peace. If you have smaller children, or perhaps you have much older children like me and feel like you have lost your way a bit from the things that were mainstays when your children were smaller. Let me help you narrow your focus for this month!
If you think about the month, there is a mood to it, a theme, or seasonal arcs. To help you figure that out for your family and where you live, you can always start with the monthly anchor kinds of posts that discuss the festivals of the month and ideas for working with children for the month and adapt it. I have done this for years, but here is the latest one for November 2022: https://theparentingpassageway.com/2022/10/30/november-light/
Here are some ideas for action steps:
My advice is to get a notebook or planner and write down some of the moods, stresses, challenges, joys as you go through this month. It will help you to look back next year and remember that October was always crazy in your family or July was endless or whatever typically happens for you where you are right now. You can’t plan ahead and be proactive and lead your family if you have no idea what happened in the past.
You can follow along in my stories on Instagram for some of the farm projects this month, and bread baking. I would love to hear what you are up to, and if you have an IG account, please drop it below!
November is the beginning of the season of light – Martinmas gives us a beautiful opportunity to think about how to spread light into our communities in a world of darkness.
I love November in all its crisp -leaved, golden sunset, chill temperatures perfection. The leaves are FINALLY turning here where I live, and it feels like the beauty and coziness of fall is upon us at last.
This is a wonderful month of celebrations for our family (yes, even now that our children are 20, almost 17, and 12!)
November 11 – Martinmas (and there are many other posts about Martinmas if you use the search engine box!) It’s also Veteran’s Day, which we celebrate every day with my husband and father in law who are veterans.
Learn songs for a Martinmas Lantern Walk – you don’t need a lot of people to do a Lantern Walk! I have done Lantern Walks with just one other family and I have done Lantern Walks with over a hundred people! You an also check your local churches – if you live in an area with a German population, there may be a church holding a celebration of this day. I went to a Lantern Walk one year at a German church and they had St. Martin on his white horse and everything!
Use transparency paper to make window silhouettes and transparency cut-outs and lanterns.
Bake bread on the cold days
Look for bird’s nests as the trees lose their leaves; make feeders start to be filled all the time, make treats for the birds
Dip leaves in glycerin or beeswax and preserve them
Learn some Thanksgiving songs and practice so you can play them after Thanksgiving Dinner!
Find a place to volunteer to serve Thanksgiving dinner
Make Thanksgiving Baskets and leaving them on your neighbor’s doorstep!
Gather greens and natural items to use for an Advent Wreath. We do this at church from the areas surrounding the church and it is quite lovely!
Find books, cozy blankets and pillows, and mark off half days for just reading and lounging around. Pull out candles, homemade Martinmas lanterns, salt lamps and scatter them around. Cuddle up and read with some fabulous tea or hot chocolate.
Find handwork projects that you will love and get started.
Order some woolens for your family members; my favorite place to get them is Green Mountain Organics
You probably already have found your hats, mittens and gloves and coats, but we are a little slower down here with cold temperatures coming later so I just did that this week!
Showing your children examples of gratitude – there are cute ideas out there, like write on a pumpkin every day what you are grateful for and display it at Thanksgiving, but I think no matter how you model it, small children will soak it up!
For the older children:
Get them involved in your autumn traditions – baking, cooking, cleaning, taking care of the birds outside, hiking, star watching, volunteering.
Think of traditions of gratitude and light. Some teens may no longer love a lantern walk (although I still love it and I am an adult), but some teens might go for a big bonfire with friends on Martinmas.
https://theparentingpassageway.com/2020/11/29/glorious-first-week-of-advent/ – This is the Advent post for last year, but I have so many back posts so there are YEARS worth of Advent ideas! Most importantly is to fill our own inner work for Advent so we can carry that light for our children into this season.
Make sure you are still getting your Vitamin N and get out in nature!
Dream a little about the next school year in homeschooling
I always choose a word to encompass my year – this year, my word for 2023 has arrived early. It is the word BOLD, and I have some bigger projects planned after some more busy but more fallow years here in this space. More about that later!
Our children are now 21, almost 18, and 13. We have homeschooled for over 15 years at this point, with grades 1-8 at home and with varying options for high school that involved homeschooling with accreditation for outside classes local to us. Our circumstances were such that we didn’t have a Waldorf School near us, and by the time we looked at public school, we were already very entrenched in homeschooling.
People often ask me what the most valuable lessons or things that I have learned in homeschooling this long.
One thing has been to understand that honoring the development of children and trying to continue the work of the spiritual world in our children through our own homeschooling has been the biggest help in raising children that are overall healthy human beings. To see education as a way to develop an entire human being is an important thread in Waldorf Education and also to me as a Christian. Our children are here for a purpose on Earth. It is my job to not stand in the way of their development and purpose, but also to bring balance and act almost as a buffer of the things that knock children off equilibrium – whether that is media, too much sedentary time, not being outside – essentially to be on guard against the things of modern life that hinder early development, and then to be able to stand back and let the things of this world come in at the appropriate time because our children are indeed made for these times. How can they handle it in the most healthy way possible? That is the question of homeschooling.
The blocks of each grade in Waldorf homeschooling is such a huge help and guide in these areas, and to be able to study the light of the human being and the development of the human being. To be able to work with head, heart, and hands, with movement and stillness, with nature and art. This helps us rise towards goodness, truth, and beauty, and this is something I do not regret in our family life. This journey has deepened me, deepened my Christian faith, and deepened how I view the world and the people in it.
May we always and absolutely remember that our children are capable. They are kind, compassionate, generous, dependable, responsible problem solvers!
In the book “Life Is The Curriculum” by Cynthia Aldinger, she mentions a verse written by Herbert Hahn ,one of the first Waldorf teachers:
Remember daily that you are continuing the work
of the spiritual world with the children.
You are the preparers of the path for these young souls,
who wish to form their lives in these difficult times.
The spiritual world will always stand by you in this task.
This is the wellspring of strength which you so need.
October is one of my favorite months of the year! Here in the Deep South, we are in uncharacteristic cold snap where temperatures plummeted from the 70s (F) to in the 30’s (F). Typically at this time of year, we are just gearing up for cooler weather, the leaves on the trees changing colors and crunching under our feet, and preparations for Halloween, All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day are underway!
How will you celebrate this month in your homeschool?
The Illustrated Calendar of the Soul: Meditations For the Yearly Cycle with 52 Pictures by Anne Stockton
Michaelmas is still here, calling us to become strong, to find ourselves, to carry ourselves and our inner light through the wintertide of nature and the darkness of the world. May you steel yourself to shine bright this month!
The best way to find this and do this is to set boundaries. Boundaries are where I end and where I begin. Where I can walk beside you, but I cannot be you. I find a lot of people are really struggling with boundaries, whether from childhood or from trying to parent in a different way than the very authoritarian way they were raised. If you would like to get some of your boundaries in order headed into fall and the holidays (where typically many boundary issues come up!), here are a few back posts for you:
October is a golden month at the farm. The nights are crisper, we are preparing for colder weather. I just cleaned out a bunch of closets and drawers because simplicity and less clutter is cozy!
This month we are celebrating:
October 4-The Feast of St. Francis of Assisi (we celebrate at church with the blessing of the animals)
October 9 – Our youngest child will be 13! Very exciting!
October 31 – Halloween, which really is low key in our house, especially on the farm because no one comes here. However, All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day are big! You can see a back post about Halloween In The Waldorf Home, and this one about preparing for All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day
The little things that make ordinary October days magic:
Playing in the leaves
Apple picking
Pumpkin farm visits
Making pumpkin muffins and breads
Longer nights with deeper and later sleep
Warming foods
Fuzzy flannel sheets
Warm teas
Lantern making for Martinmas but I love to light lanterns in the school room as the days get darker and the darkness gets earlier and longer
Get up, help get horses in unless my husband and daughter are doing that, feed barn cats and dogs. My high school senior drives herself to her hybrid high school. Soon we will be putting horses out during the day instead of at night, so we will feed and let them out and clean everything.
If it’s a work day, I am out the door. If it’s a school day, we usually do opening activities, math practice and language arts/ spelling practice right off the bat because it is hated and if I leave it it won’t happen, Main Lesson, read alouds. We usually take a break to check on the horses. Afternoons we usually either go to the park, our son has horseback riding lessons or 4H or we work on the farm. This season I will be setting aside several afternoons a week to create holiday gifts and create art.
At dinner time we have dinner and feed all the animals. If the horses are in, we check on them about 9 and make sure they are good for the night.
Weekly I plan something for myself – lunch or dinner with friends. This week I have a facial scheduled which I haven’t probably done in 4 years, so that’s fun. We go to church most weeks, although I do tend to take one weekend a month and stay home and clean, organize, and rest. My husband and I try to do date night a few times a month, but it’s easier for us to do that as our children are older. 🙂
Seventh grade homeschooling – the first time I went through seventh grade, I detailed what we did weekly. I did not post it in one huge block as people often take things from this website and put it in a curriculum and I figured it would be harder if the information was spread out.
My original plan was to start the year with physics, but we actually ended up starting with Medieval as we were behind from sixth grade. We also covered quite a bit of African geography. Plans are always evolving but I am planning on sticking to my initial plan for the rest of the year, although I am contemplating sneaking in a little physiology. Our seventh grader had a lot of physics last year at an outside class, so I am not sure if I will swing back to that or not or just tack on a little time this summer and review some of the major concepts with him in preparation for eighth grade.
SEPTEMBER 26-30 FALL BREAK
Week Eight October 3-7- Renaissance
Week Nine October 10-14 – Renaissance
Week Ten October 17-21 – Renaissance
Week Eleven October 24-28 – Renaissance and Father-Son Trip
Week Twelve October 31-November 4 – Perspective Drawing
Week Thirteen November 7-11 – Perspective Drawing
Week Fourteen November 14-18 – Catch Up Week
NOVEMBER 21-25 THANKSGIVING BREAK
Week Fifteen November 28-December 2 – Astronomy and Navigation
Week Sixteen December 5-9 – Astronomy and Navigation
Week Seventeen December 12-16 – Astronomy and Navigation
DECEMBER 19- JANUARY 4 – CHRISTMAS BREAK
Week Eighteen January 5/6 – Grammar and Writing
Week Nineteen January 9-13 – Grammar and Writing
Week Twenty January 16-January 20 – Grammar and Writing
Week Twenty One January 23-27 – Chemistry
Week Twenty Two January 30-February 3 – Chemistry
Week Twenty Three February 6-February 10 – Chemistry
FEBRUARY 13-17 WINTER BREAK
Week Twenty Four February 20-24- Math Main Lesson
Week Twenty Five February 27-March 3- Math Main Lesson
Week Twenty Six March 6-10- Math Main Lesson
Week Twenty Seven March 13-17 – American Colonial Times
Week Twenty Eight March 20-24 – American Colonial Times
Week Twenty Nine March 27-31 – American Colonial Times
APRIL 3-7 SPRING BREAK
Week Thirty April 10-14 – Writing (probably will base in physiology)
The Parenting Passageway 