Celebrating Advent-Week one, the Mineral Kingdom

Beneath night's dark blanket

a white candle is lit.

A warm Advent gift,

the flame of human spirit.

With this first light of Advent,

we give thanks to the stones.

To the shells and the sand,

to the crystals and bones.

Bless the strength

and support they provide,

holding us steady

on our foundation outside.

Bless their beauty

and inner light.

Illuminating our lives

in the darkest of nights.

Anticipating the return of the light, both the physical and the spiritual, is a revered and important event -especially living here in Alaska where our days are currently averaging about 6 hours of daylight! At a time when the outer world is asleep, we attempt to temper our own deep inward turning with the reawakening and aching longing for light. Whether wrestling with ones demons, coming to peace, or warmly incubating the next step of one's evolution...the Advent season is a most welcome time.

About 3 years ago, around the winter holidays, I got the inspiration to create a Better Advent Calender. Actually, I was just beginning my journey into the philosophies of Rudolf Steiner and Waldorf education . The plastic and/or obnoxious toys had recently been donated and I was anticipating the wonderful new natural toys that "Santa" would bring. At the same time, I wanted to make the season meaningful with less emphasis on list making and mall shoppping . I wanted it to truly be a SEASON of celebrating, sharing, giving, and above all, being thankful. I was tired of hectic, arrhythmical days after Thanksgiving leading up to the One Carnal Christmas Day Frenzy and the CRASH soon after. Our society has distilled the Advent season down to Black Friday, advertising bombardments, and a simple cardboard calendar containing cheap waxy chocolates under it's flimsy doors. I wanted something more for my family. I created our current Advent calendar containing the occasional chocolate, but also little gemstones and gift cards for special events like sledding at the park, an owling walk, a foot rub... We had always made our own Christmas cards and yearly ornament, but now it was the start of emphasising gift giving from the heart. I helped to kids to come up with handmade gift ideas for our family and close friends. Things they would enjoy making and feel proud to give, knowing the recipient would cherish their gift.

Last year was my first attempt at incorporating the 4 weeks of Advent into our holiday season. Each week is a celebration of one of the four worldly Kingdoms: Mineral, plant, animal and human. A new candle is lit for each Sunday of Advent, and depending on what Kingdom is being celebrated that week, we add special items to the the nature table, read stories and poems, perform table plays, make crafts, and enjoy special outings. The morning after each Advent Sunday, a gift from the Advent gnomes can be found on the nature table. Yesterday, Lo found the beautiful tall quartz behind the candle that you see in the photo above! For week four, I'm sure the gnomes will bring our new Mary and Joseph to the nature table. And, of course, sometime on Christmas Eve the Child of Light will appear with them.

Here are some of our Advent ideas for this season:


The Mineral Kingdom

Trip to the crystal and rock store
Add rocks, gemstones, crystals, bones, and shells to our nature table and candle.
Dig out the bags of rocks and shells we have for counting, sorting, building, and creating designs and patterns.
Basalt stones that we have collected from Alaska rivers can be warmed up and used for massage or just to hold in your hands. WONDERFUL on a cold winter day! Yay Kingdom of Stones!
Read the Festival of Stones from Tiptoes Lightly-The Festival of Stones


The Plant Kingdom
This year will be our first trip out to buy a REAL tree!
Collect pine boughs for decorating
Trim the tree
Add pomander balls, pomegranates, and plants to the nature table
Feed our many hungry houseplants with fertilizer
Make a yummy holiday salad with dried cranberries and winter nuts
Trip to the botanical garden
You can order gifts from companies using GoZero to eliminate the carbon footprint of online shipping!
Read The Festival of Plants from Tiptoes Lightly

The Animal Kingdom
Add little wood and felt animals, feathers, tufts of fur to the nature table
Volunteer to walk dogs at the Humane Society
Groom our nappy pets
Make treats for the hungry birds outside
Take a winter trip to the zoo!
Read the Festival of Animals from Tiptoes Lightly


The Human Kingdom
Add gnomes, and fairies to our Mary and Joseph on the nature table

Adopt an American soldier and send a care package- Soldier's Angels
Buy a chicken, goat, or even a yak for a family in an impoverished country! Heifer.org
Visit our elders at a nursing home
Bake and deliver goodies to our neighbors
Enjoy all the socializing that we do with our loved ones this time of year!
Read the Festival of Light from Tiptoes Lightly

*Ecofun gift ideas:

for those kiddos who would love to help with cutting the firewood for warm toasty woodstoves-SAFELY! Head over to Learning Apple Gardens and their Etsy shop for wooden chainsaws!

*Nicola from Which Name? is doing a giveaway for one of her amazing natural crayon caddies on her wonderful blog this week! Please do take a moment to check it out!*

Some of our favorite Holiday recipes!

My FAH-BU-LOUS Apple-Cranberry Streusel Pie!

This includes a GREAT crust-making tutorial as well!




Fun and FABULOUS penguins!

DEA's ROCKIN' PUMPKIN COOKIES

They look wacky but are unbelievably yummy!!!

Homecrafted gifts for the holidays!

I've been scrambling this past weekend to get this year's Holiday Season events organized and scheduled! Making lists, checking them twice, and thrice in most cases... I thought I would post some of our favorite crafts from last year to share. I know I've really enjoyed the abundant creativity I've found through everyone's blogs the past few years. For all of that, I am grateful!

Here's a game the kids love to break out around Thanksgiving, right about the time that we're watching "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving".
This Native American game of dice fits well with the Thanksgiving themes that work for our family's yearly tradition. A really great tactile experience as well as a lesson in history, economics and counting! A simple but engaging game. Check out the tutorial HERE.

Dea made these cute angels with her 6th grade class a few years ago and re-created them last year for her grandmothers. Simple materials and process resulting in a surprisingly beautiful gift! HERE's the tutorial.

A couple years ago, Huz made a set of kindergarten wood unit blocks for Lo. It was so simple! Just a matter of buying 2x4s of pine, following a spec chart, doing the math, ripping the wood and sanding with a belt sander. Lo was amazed with this gift handmade by Daddy and has been incorporating them into her play almost on a daily basis since.

Block tutorial

Dea made these beautiful eco-friendly Japanese style hangings with handmade specialty papers from around the world. Click HERE for the tutorial.

The possibilities of silkies are only limited by the imagination! One of the cleverest ideas that Lo has had with her silkies was to make a basic doll with a hooded cape over it's head! More HERE.

Magic crystals abound in our wonderland! A fun activity for the kids...or, perhaps the "gnomes" can surprise them with a bunch of these treasures when they next go outside to play!

An Alaskan harvest-elementary school style

I like the idea of writing a "harvest" post this time of year-taking a look back at our own efforts at a wee garden and greenhouse growing, but I think I've missed the mark the past couple of years! My intention was to do one now, but I think I'll wait until after I post this one about Willa's class trip to the u-pick farm. It's a nice taste of agrarian Alaska and the magnificent produce it yields. And it kicks the ass of our little harvest here at home.

Willa's school does a K-6 class trip at the beginning of the school year as a way for kids, parents, and teachers to get acquainted/re-acquainted with each other, to get outside for some kind of harvest activity, and after which the kids bring their goods back to school to prep and cook into something yummy. For years it was a berry picking/hiking trip and the kids would make muffins the next day. This year was different. Since this program is embarking on a year long gardening project, they opted to take a trip up to Palmer to Pyrah's Pioneer Peak Farm to give the kids the experience of a tractor drawn hayride and picking veggies straight from the gardens. I definitely think it was a success! -Our previous berry picking excursions sometimes left us with NO BERRIES, depending on how the summer's weather had been! The farmland up in the Mat-Su valley is just GORGEOUS! Fecund emerald land and indigo mountains...

The kids brought home their veggies to be cleaned that night and then brought them back to school the next day to be chopped and prepped for soup. Each class had about 4 crock pots going in their rooms that day! The smell was heaven. Everyone got to enjoy the soup at our Family Harvest pot luck. A warm and lovely segue into fall.

Teenagers are EVIL!

Or, Things To Do When You Are Sick.
Physically. Not mentally.

(After)

Lo was sick all last week. In fact half of her class has been MIA over the past couple of weeks. Dea was sick yesterday for, like, 10 minutes as per usual. She's got one seriously sound immune system.

Now it's my turn. Sore throat, chills, Huz is in Palm Springs for workshops/fancy award diners/golf, and I'm dealing with the fact that my dad in Florida has been deemed unfit to care for himself. Thus starts the long ordeal of paperwork, getting him to understand he can't go home again, and trying to get him up here to a facility in Alaska where at least he will have family to watch over him.

So, what do I do? Muck about with photos! Lot's of fun Halloween pic tricks to be found on various online photo-altering sites! You, too can create an interpretive photo of your angsty teen that'll really irk 'em!

I kid. And, yes, we've all had our teen moments- I had one yesterday, in fact, after I got a crappy hair cut. Let's take a look back at my FaceBook rant, shall we?

"Great dancing christ-on-a-crutch. They BUTCHED me at the salon. Is there NO ONE in Alaska who knows how to deal with CURL?! I walked out of there looking like Gene Wilder for feksake. I look like an asshole. I'll see you in DECEMBER."
~stomps off and slams bedroom door.

My mind is cast asunder on a daily basis at what a lovely person my girlie is evolving into. Can we not just slow down the whole process, though? A little bit? This "growing up" thing is happening WAY TOO FAST.

(Before)

(Homecoming dance)

Her dress was so cute! I should post the dress that I wore to a Homecoming. PUKE! Twas my MOTHER'S.