Tomorrow is the spring equinox. You can find ways to celebrate here.
I’ll be traveling next week, so I won’t be blogging. But I have a little giveaway planned while I’m away, so check back on Monday for the details!
Happy first day of spring!
Seasons
Celebrate the First Day of Spring
The first day of spring is nearly here. What better time to start some new traditions? Here are some ideas:
- Place a bouquet of crocuses, daffodils, tulips, or dandelions in your kids’ bedrooms while they sleep, so they wake up to fresh spring flowers.
- Go on a hike and identify wildflowers if some are sprouting in your area.
- Visit a local farm and see if you can get a glimpse of calves, lambs, or chicks in the barnyard.
- Make dandelion or clover chains if those flowers are coming up where you live. Wear them as spring crowns.
- Watch the sun rise. (You can find out what time it will rise here.)
- Sow seeds. Have each family member pick a favorite flower to plant. Designate a special garden, and make a ceremony of it.
- Establish a table-top, shelf, or mantel to display spring flowers, cherry buds, egg shells, a bird’s nest, or whatever symbolizes springtime in your family.
- Read books about the season! Some of my family’s favorite spring picture-books are: Spring: An Alphabet Acrostic by Steven Schur, Spring by Ron Hirschi, and Home for a Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown.
- Read aloud from The Spring Equinox: Celebrating the Greening of the Earth by Ellen Jackson.
- Make 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.
- Eat dinner by candlelight.
- Eat outside if weather permits, or have a picnic on a blanket in the living room.
- 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 – try whatever’s coming up in your backyard. You can read more about making natural egg dyes in the book Together: Creating Family Traditions.
Or create your own traditions to welcome spring.
Resources for seasonal celebrations:
The Book of the Year: A Brief History of Our Seasonal Holidays by Anthony F. Aveni
Ceremonies of the Seasons by Jennifer Cole
The Spring Equinox: Celebrate the Greening of the Earth by Ellen Jackson
Together: Creating Family Traditions by Rondi Hillstrom Davis and Janell Sewall Oakes
The Creative Family by Amanda Blake Soule
If you liked this post, you may enjoy these related posts:
*Are you planning a celebration for the first day of spring?*
Coming out of a rut
I love the feeling of coming out of a rut.
The rhythms of life sometimes go stale. You find yourself preparing the same meals every week, going through the same routines, taking the same walk, doing the same chores.
Then one day the whole world feels electric again, your brain buzzes with ideas, and you can’t wait to start something new.
I used to imagine that I could keep myself from falling into a rut in the first place. But I’ve come to accept that ruts are necessary. The constant cycle of coming in and out of them mirrors the seasons. Fall brings fresh starts. Winter lulls us to a slower pace. Spring pulses with promise … then the sluggish heat descends.
Yesterday was a day for coming out of ruts. The sunshine made the air almost glittery.
My son and I weaved up hills, stomped in puddles, took photographs of trees, and pointed out birds to each other. We closed our eyes and turned our faces to the sun.
I’ve never wanted to live in the tropics. I love seasons. Even though winter’s darkness and summer’s heat almost always come to feel unbearable at some point, that makes the coming season feel all the more welcome. And they give life its rhythms.
My life has its own rhythms right now – dough rising, bread baking, stews simmering, fingers fluttering across the keyboard, words appearing on the computer screen, the never-ending washing and drying and folding of laundry, the squeak of the swing set as my son goes back and forth. I love these routines. I feel grateful for this abundant life. But sometimes the sameness of it all, day after day after day, can feel almost as unbearable as a subzero December week or a scorching August afternoon.
And then a spring day comes along to remind us that what seems permanent right now will be gone before we know it.
Celebrate the First Day of Winter!
December 21 is the shortest day of the year in the northern hemisphere. Locales above the Arctic Circle, including parts of Canada, Alaska, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia, Greenland, and the very northern tip of Iceland will experience 24 hours of total darkness. You can find out when the sun will rise and set where you live here.
Winter was a long, dark, and difficult time for many of our forebears. The solstice provided an opportunity for people to celebrate the return of more daylight.
How did ancient people celebrate?
Gift-giving
The ancient Romans exchanged candles and other gifts during Saturnalia, their week-long solstice celebration.
Role-switching
In Persia, the king changed places with one of his subjects on the winter solstice, and the subject was crowned during an elaborate street party.
In Rome, masters and servants switched roles; senators wore simple, rather than elaborate togas; men sometimes dressed as women; fights and grudges were forgotten; and other everyday conventions were put aside.
Candle-lighting
In England and Scandinavia, people lit a Yule log, or oak branch, which was often replaced by a large candle that burned throughout the day.
Bonfires
Japanese Shinto farmers lit fires on the mountain sides to welcome back the sun.
Mistletoe and Evergreen Trees
The British Celts put mistletoe on their altars. And the Germans and Romans decorated their houses with evergreen trees, wreaths, and garlands as a symbol of life and renewed fertility.
Sun Festivals
The Hopi celebrated the return of the sun with ceremonies. Priests dressed in animal skins with feathers in their head-dresses to look like the rays of the sun.
Why celebrate the first day of winter?
The holiday season is busy enough for most of us. Why add anything else to the to-do list?
Well, celebrating the first day of each season has many benefits. It offers the perfect opportunity to:
- Note the cyclical changes in the soil, sky, trees, plants, and wildlife.
- Reflect on the lessons each time of year imparts. Winter, for example, reminds us of the importance of quiet, rest, and dormancy.
- Learn about different celebrations around the world.
- Celebrate! And seasonal celebrations are affordable, nature-based, and as easy or elaborate as you want them to be.
- Be grateful for the gifts of food, family, and friendship.
The key to celebrating the first day of winter, when most of us are busy planning other celebrations, is to keep it simple, and choose traditions that give you time to relax and reflect.
Some ideas:
- Establish a table-top, shelf, or mantel to display a seasonal tableau. On the first day of winter, replace the fall decorations with evergreen boughs, pine cones, candles, mistletoe, or whatever symbolizes fall in your family.
- Collect books about the seasons at yard sales, used-book stores, and thrift shops year-round. Choose a special basket or shelf for them, and change them out on the first day of each season. Or take a trip to the library a few days before your celebration. Some of my family’s favorite winter picture-books are: Stella, Queen of the Snow by Mary-Louise Gay; The Big Snow by Berta Hader; The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats; A Kitten Tale by Eric Rohmann; Snow by Cynthia Rylant; Winter is the Warmest Season by Lauren Stringer; and Owl Moon by Jane Yolen.
- Read aloud from The Winter Solstice by Ellen Jackson.
- Go for a nature walk or go cross-country skiing, and enjoy the brisk air and winter scenery.
- Watch the sun rise and set.
- Make a seasonal feast, with foods like beets, winter squash, potatoes, onions, kale, cabbage, or parsnips.
- Eat by candlelight.
- Blow out the candles and turn off the lights after dinner, sit together quietly, and experience and reflect on darkness.
- Share one thing you’ve lost and one thing you’ve gained over the past year.
- Bring an evergreen bough inside and make it into a wishing tree. Secure the bough in a bucket with rocks. Cut leaves out of green 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.
- Sit around the fire and tell stories about your best and worst holiday memories.
Resources:
The Winter Solstice by John Matthews
The Book of the Year: A Brief History of Our Seasonal Holidays by Anthony aveni
Celebrate the Solstice by Richard Heinberg
Ceremonies of the Seasons by Jennifer Cole
The Winter Solstice by Ellen Jackson
Do you already celebrate the first day of winter? I’d love to hear about your traditions.
Last days of Fall
The first day of winter is December 21. Look for a post next week on ways to celebrate!
Right now, I’m savoring these last fleeting days of fall….
Milestones
The ducks are flying low, black vees swooping between the trees. “Ga ga,” Ezra calls as they pass. He’s toddling along beside me. He weaves into a neighbor’s yard, and I reach for his hand to veer him back onto the sidewalk
Ezra took his first solo steps this week at seventeen months old. Most babies hit this milestone, oh, about a half-year before Ezra.
He took his time, but he’s hitting it in style. Within a day, he’s toddling everywhere – down the hall, across the park, and up and down the block. And he couldn’t be more thrilled about it.
“Hi, hi, hi,” he calls to a neighbor’s cat. He crouches and picks up a leaf, then stops to examine a lavender plant, refusing to budge for several minutes. “Vroom, vroom,” he says, watching someone ride by on a bicycle.
“Where’s the ball?” He points at a pumpkin on a doorstep.
I tend to walk fast. On walks, my husband is always tugging on my arm. “Slow down. I’m back here.” And my parents call my walks sprints. I just love that feeling of striding – legs pumping, arms gliding.
But I’m appreciating Ezra’s pace right now. My favorite season is almost over. The last yellow leaves are clinging to barren branches, and they shine like pendants in the afternoon sun. The sun, itself, won’t be with us for much longer. It usually goes into hiding until about mid-February. So Ezra and I are making the most of it, ambling around the neighborhood every chance we get.
Watching Ezra delight in his first walks makes me think of my four-year-old nephew. He just got his first pair of glasses. His grandmother says he stands at the window and gazes out, remarking on blades of grass, twigs, the grain of wood.
Imagine seeing all of it for the first time.
This post is for Steady Mom’s 30 Minute Blog Challenge.