Freelance Content Marketing Writer and Editor
We are just two weeks away from launching my dad’s anthology … and we are busy! But we’re also having a blast. After working in many corners of the book world for more than a decade, I’m completely hooked on publishing. I’ll have so much more to share with you about the process once I have a moment to catch my breath.
This weekend we managed to take a morning off to make our annual trek to choose the perfect pumpkin. I hope you too are getting some opportunities to enjoy this beautiful season.
Thursday, June 20 is the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. The sun will bathe the Arctic Circle in 24 hours of daylight, and ancient monuments around the world will align with the sun.
Seasonal celebrations can be easy and fun. Here are a few simple ideas for welcoming summer this year:
Celebrate
Explore, Plant, or Gather
Eat
Read
Wishing you a happy first day of summer!
If you liked this post, you may enjoy these related posts:
Need more inspiration for your summer celebration? Check out these resources:
How do you plan to celebrate the first day of summer? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.
“In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.”
― Margaret Atwood, Bluebeard’s Egg
The spring equinox is this Wednesday. What a perfect time to celebrate longer days, warmer weather, and blossoming trees and flowers. Here are some ideas for simple ways to observe the day:
Observe and Explore
Watch the sun rise and set. Visit a farm to catch a glimpse of the adorable lambs, calves, and chicks. Go for a hike and identify wildflowers. Learn about the plants and trees on your block or in your yard.
Celebrate
Arrange a bouquet of crocuses, daffodils, tulips, or dandelions for your kids or partner to wake up to. Go on a picnic. Eat dinner by candlelight.
Play
Fly a kite. Blow bubbles. Draw birds. Collect bugs. Run around barefoot.
Plant
If it’s time to sow seeds where you live, designate a place for each member of the family to plant a favorite vegetable or flower in honor of spring. Or, plant a hanging flower basket or window planter.
Make
Make a spring crown out of dandelion or clover chains. Get creative with some spring arts and crafts. Decorate hard-boiled eggs with natural dyes. (Try beets, cranberries, blackberries, or raspberries for red; yellow-onion skins or turmeric for yellow; parsley, spinach, or red-onion skins for green; blueberries for blue; and coffee, pecan hulls, or black-walnut hulls for brown. Or experiment with whatever is coming up in your backyard.)
Read
Read aloud from The Spring Equinox: Celebrating the Greening of the Earth by Ellen Jackson. Check out these ten spring reads for kids aged 0 to 9. Browse Publisher’s Weekly’s list of The Most Anticipated Books of Spring 2013.
Eat
Prepare a spring feast with the first crops of the season. Dandelion leaves, steamed nettles, and asparagus are delicious spring greens. Other traditional spring foods include eggs, ham, and sweets.
Reflect
Spring is a time for rebirth and new beginnings. What’s ready to grow in your life?
“What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.” ― John Steinbeck
It’s hard to find words after the tragic shooting in Connecticut last Friday. I am grieving with the families and the community there. As we, as a nation, reflect on darkness, this Friday in the Northern Hemisphere, we will observe the winter solstice — the darkest day of the year. We also welcome back the light and try to remember that brighter days will surely follow this season of darkness.
The frenzy of the holidays may seem like the wrong time to add yet another tradition to your to-do list. The key is making seasonal celebrations simple and relaxing. They can be the perfect opportunity to pause, appreciate nature’s cyclical changes, the lessons each season imparts, and to celebrate the natural beauty all around us.
Here are a few easy ideas for saying farewell to fall and hello to winter on Friday:
Observe
Watch the sun rise and set. Take a walk, hike, or ski trip and notice all of the things you appreciate about winter. For me, it’s the branches outlined against the sky and the thrushes, sparrows, seagulls, starlings, blue birds, and wrens that make this part of the world their home during the winter.
Read
What better time of the year to curl up and share books? A few of my family’s favorite winter-themed picture books are:
It’s also fun to read aloud from The Winter Solstice by Ellen Jackson. And if you’re in the mood for adult reads, check out this list of Good Books to Read in the Winter or the Independent’s 50 Best Winter Reads.
Eat
Make a seasonal feast, with foods like beets, winter squash, potatoes, onions, kale, cabbage, or parsnips. Prepare your favorite winter dessert or hot beverages. And don’t forget to light candles while you eat, a sure hit for kids and adults alike.
Reflect
When the sun sets, let your house dance with candlelight. Then after dinner, blow the candles out and sit together quietly in the darkness for a few minutes. Reflect on darkness and on how long and cold winter must have felt before we had electric lights and heat.
Other things you can reflect on together:
Wish
Bring an evergreen bough inside and make it into a wishing tree. Secure the bough in a bucket with rocks. Cut leaves out of construction paper. Have each person write down a wish for the coming year on each leaf. Hang the leaves on the tree using a hole punch and yarn or ribbon.
Hoping you have a happy first day of winter.
Do you have your own winter solstice traditions? I’d love to hear about them.
The holiday season is here! Honestly, I’m excited. Having a four-year-old helps make this time of the year fun and wonder-filled.
We used to buy and ship a lot of stuff around the country, and it was incredibly expensive and stressful. So for the past few years, we’ve been on a mission to make our celebrations joyful, memorable . . . and slow. We’ve established a few traditions, like tree decorating, cookie making, and a solstice celebration. But we try not to get too frenzied with making, baking, or gift giving. We leave lots of time for taking walks, reading aloud, telling stories, and just being together.
I’m excited about the handmade gifts we have planned for our close friends and family members, but I can’t say very much about that here, at least until after the big day. So I thought I’d offer you a roundup of some helpful resources for making this holiday season simpler, greener, and more meaningful:
Ideas for do-it-yourself recycled gift bags, green gift bows, meaningful gifts, and plenty of food for thought on focusing more on people than things this holiday season.
A fantastic list of resources for making the holidays simple and stress-free. Also worth checking out: 35 Gifts Your Children Will Never Forget.
A beautiful natural advent calendar and simple gift-giving strategy.
Twenty-eight ideas for clutter-free gifts, including gift certificates, cooking or yoga lessons, and homemade edibles.
And finally, here’s a roundup of my past posts about simple, natural, and slow ways to celebrate this time of the year:
As a gift to myself and my family, I’m embracing slow blogging this holiday season, so you may notice fewer posts than usual.
Are you planning a slow, simple holiday celebration this year? I’d love to hear about it.
Full confession: I’m not the craftiest person.
As much as I love the idea of crafting and am convinced that it improves our creative, cognitive, and emotional health, I am a bit challenged in the area of actually, you know, crafting. (Just thinking about it works, right?)
That’s why I’m grateful that Ezra attends a sweet nature-based preschool for a few hours a week, where craftiness abounds. This week he made these beautiful (and wonderful-smelling) beeswax-dipped leaves. And it’s such an easy project; I think I could probably even master it.
Here’s a how-to from Martha Stewart herself, if you are in a crafty mood and still have some fall leaves to preserve.
Wishing you a happy Halloween!
