Happy Birthday, St. Nick!

Excerpt from Wynstone's Winter book:

"Upon his snow white steed
With wind and lightning speed
St. Nicholas leaves the sky
And comes a riding by...

And we will learn a tune,
Of sun and star and moon,
And sing our happy lay,
Sing on St. Nicholas' day."

~ from Germany

Today, we celebrate a generous soul who gave of himself in order to light the flame inside of others. I have so enjoyed learning about this wonderful man.

In his honor, I had to share this page from Tasha Tudor's book, "A Time to Keep".


This morning, the girls awoke to their boots holding special treasures from St. Nicholas...porcelain kitty boxes to hold some handmade jewelry, needle felted characters, knitting needles with hand painted tops, and each twin received a special mineral - Elena received sulphur and Charley received sodalite which we will place upon the seasonal table before this eve when the plant kingdom makes its way into the Advent scenes!


There is a lovely tale in Wynstone's "Winter" book entitled, "St. Nicholas and the Star Children" which I will be telling tonight which is about St. Nicholas accompanying Mary and the Christ Child from the Heavens to the earth and they are joined by many little stars. St. Nicholas rides ahead, preparing the children of earth for the arrival of the Child of Light. When they arrive, as the stars leap out of Mary's arms, they become human children and play happily together with the Christ Child.

It is a sweet tale to prepare our little ones for the special day which will be here soon! Happy St. Nick's Day to all and a big thank you to Christine Natale for those incredible St. Nicholas stories! I can't wait to read more of your wonderful, wonderful stories!

Advent: Days 6, 7 and 8

Excerpt from:
E. Field's Christmas Song

...Once a lovely shining star
Seen by shepherds from afar

Gently moved until its light
Made a manger's cradle bright

There a little baby lay
Pillowed soft upon the hay
And its mother sang and smiled
This is Christ, the holy child.

We spent the majority of the day yesterday decorating the house and putting our ornaments on the tree. I had a winter wedding and as party favors, we gave out ornaments. We had a lot left over and every year, they make our tree beautiful and I will have a box to pass on to each of my children to decorate their own trees someday!

Joyful decorations abound.

Old crooners and organ chimes sound.

Boxes dusted off with treasures found,

...ah, the joy of Christmas!

~J.D.


Yesterday we read the next story of St. Nick - December 4.
Today will be the December 5th tale.
Sunday will be December 6th and then we leave our shoes out for St. Nick!

Again, I'd like to give credit to Our Little Nature Nest for sharing the link to these stories! She has an amazing blog that I'd encourage everyone to visit :D

Our next few nights of Advent reading will take place out of this lovely book by Gunhild Sehlin called "Mary's Little Donkey and the Flight to Egypt".

Excerpt from Little Donkey
by Eric Boswell

Little donkey, Little donkey
On the dusty road.
Got to keep on plodding onwards,
With your precious load.

Been a long time, little donkey,
Through the winter's night.
Don't give up now, little donkey,
Bethlehem's in sight...

Advent: Day 5

This is one of our two Advent seasonal tables. The beautiful cascading silk was hand-dyed with natural dyes by Syrendell. If you are looking for soft and artistically dyed silks, they have an amazing selection and do beautiful custom orders. I have a few silks I bought elsewhere, but they are nowhere near as soft or as beautiful as the ones from this creative family.

I needle felted a large, Old World Father Christmas with beautiful wool from Peace Fleece.

And on our other Advent seasonal table, we made a lovely Star Ladder inspired by a craft in the amazing book, All Year Round. Instead of using a blue ribbon, though, we cut strips of felt and sewed them together. And instead of star stickers, we cut star shapes out of felt and stitched them on as such.

Each day, the little angel travels down a star until she reaches the last one on Christmas Eve when we will then light our star candle at the bottom. We decorated the table with moss, evergreens, our Christmas gnomes and some beautiful crystals and rocks.

The angel is made out of tissue paper and wool. Needle felt a small ball and place it inside of a piece of tissue paper with rounded corners (see tutorial below). Tie string around the neck and twist the sides to make hands. Then attach the wings and you can either use a pin to move her down the star ladder or tape.

I also wanted to share our enchanting eco-twig house, beautifully hand made by the artist Rick Tan at Syrendell. It is made out of twigs from his yard, along with reclaimed fencing. We added the moss and the straw and it awaits our weary travelers on Christmas Eve. We will be adding to our nature table each Sunday in Advent.

Our quartz crystal was added here to represent the minerals on the 1st Sunday in Advent.

Last night, our special book pulled from our Christmas book basket was "Room for a Little One", purchased by the girls Gramy, which is a very sweet tale about the animals making room for each other and the Christ child on that special eve.

And for our Advent reading today, we shared another amazing story from "Christmas Roses: Legends for Advent". The story was entitled "The Old Woman Who Wanted a Gnome in Her Home" by the gifted story teller Jeanna Oterdahl. In the story, the old woman learns that only through giving of herself to someone else in need, would her house become a real home, complete with that special gnome.

Finally, for our December 3rd St. Nicholas Story, we enjoyed yet another fantastic tale by Christine Natale called, "Bishop Nicholas and the Family". I absolutely love the focus of the stories in this series, which is on the act of giving, rather than receiving. It is befitting and so needed in this season.

Our little St. Nicholas has found a nice home in the Advent wreath by the rose quartz crystal. He seems to be enjoying the stories about him. Elena and I finished our verse which I took from Wynstone's Winter book. Charley still has to finish hers, but I thought I would post pictures of them to sign us off for today!

It is absolutely amazing to me to see how in such a short time, the girls have learned to use the block crayons with such comfort and today, Elena decided to draw her own vision of St. Nicholas. I think it turned out much better than mine :D

Kind old man, St. Nicholas dear,

Come to our house this year.

Here's some straw and here's some hay

For your little donkey grey.

Pray put something in my shoe,

I've been good the whole year through,

Kind old man, St. Nicholas dear,

Come to our house this year.

~From Germany: Wynstone's Winter book

Advent: Day 4

We have several *stations* set up at our house this holiday season. This display is on one of our two seasonal tables. It is a piece of a Christmas tree we obtained last year, where the owner of a tree lot allowed us to take as many of the sawed off discs as we wanted for a crafting day with homeschooling friends. We surrounded it with moss and a large quartz crystal to represent the mineral kingdom. We will light a beeswax candle in the center on Christmas Eve.

Today, we made Snickerdoodle cookies. My plan is to make a batch of cookies each day of the week to freeze and then give cookie plates to our dearest friends and family. Most of them will be flown to Chicago for a final Christmas party held at my Gran's old home as we celebrate her life on Christmas Eve, which would have been her 92nd birthday.

So here is the recipe for the cookies (we make ours without dairy products or eggs, but I will list my recipes with traditional ingredients - feel free to substitute as needed):

Snickerdoodle Cookies

1 cup unsalted butter, softened

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 3/4 cups unbleached flour

2 teaspoons cream of tartar

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

CINNAMON/SUGAR COATING:

2 tablespoons sugar

2 tablespoons cinnamon

Mix together the butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla and then add the dry ingredients and mix well. Chill the dough for 3 hours. Then shape it into walnut-sized balls and roll in the cinnamon/sugar coating. Bake at 400 degrees on an ungreased cookie sheet for approximately 8-10 minutes. Makes about 4 dozen.

The girls loved them and were sneaking dough as often as they could, so I think we're going to have to make another batch lest these all disappear before our cookie gifting!

For our Advent reading, we are enjoying stories from this lovely collection called, "Christmas Roses: Legends for Advent". I so wish the matching Advent calendar wasn't out of print, but alas it is (if anyone knows where I can find one, please do let me know in the comments section).

Last night, I read "Why God Created Man" by Dan Lindholm.

This morning, the girls opened the next window in their Advent calendar, moved the angel down a star on the ladder (post with pictures about this soon)! And I read the next story in the anthology which is by Jeanna Oterdahl, called "The Troll Who Wanted to be Human".

It is a lovely tale of learning what it takes to be a true human being as the troll learns to think of others first and helps them in their endeavors, all the while, slowly losing his ugly troll qualities and becoming a human being. He is welcomed into the community on Christmas Eve with the help of a loving young girl who has opened her heart to the real meaning of unconditionally loving others.

Incidentally, the book has been rewritten by Thomas Berger with lovely illustrations and is being put out by Floris Books here. We will be reading Mr. Berger's version tonight before bed and this is sure to become an annual favorite in our home.

And I am going to be listing some other classics as we read them by the fire in the evenings. Does anyone remember this sweet old book, "Santa Mouse"? Oh my gosh, it was one of my favorites growing up. Not a complicated book, but sweet and simple with adorable illustrations of the cutest little mouse. Young children will adore it! Barnes and Noble has republished it and sells the hardcover for a very nice price...

I should mention that we had little white mice as children and of course, my baby brother John named his mouse, "Santa Mouse" after this cute book!

During the day, we worked on our verse books after listening to the Dec 2nd story by Christine Natale, "Bishop Nicholas" in preparation for St. Nick's Day.

Tonight, we'll also be telling a story from the Johanson book, "Stories for the Festivals of the Year" entitled: "The Promise to the Little Ox". I haven't needle felted the girls Oxen yet, so I have to get on that right now - lol! Pictures to follow soon, I hope! :D

Advent: Day 3

"In giving to others, you'll find yourself blessed."

Today, we baked our Ciastka Miodowe cookies in celebration of St. Nicholas. We let them "rest" overnight and finished them this morning.

We then sat down to begin our lessons.

Today, I shared the WONDERFUL first story in Christine Natale's touching collection called "The Little Boy Nicholas" and the girls absolutely loved it. It really moved all of us and both of them were excited to see just what young Nicholas would come up with next to help each child in need. It prompted a positive discussion on giving and how it makes the giver feel when s/he shares or provides for someone else in need.

We also began working in our Verse book and will be finishing the verse up first before drawing our pictures of St. Nick. Will share that soon.

For our Advent reading tonight, we will be continuing with Irene Johnanson's "Stories for the Festivals of the Year" with the next Christmas story entitled: "Why the Sheep Looked Forward to Christmas" and it tells the story of a single night in Mary's journey to see her cousin, Elizabeth, who was with child at an elderly age. The night is cold. Mary stops to rest and the nearby woolly sheep see a divine glow around her so they lie down around the pregnant Mary to keep her and the Baby inside of her warm. Afterwards, an angel comes to the sheep and bestows a gift unto them, sharing a joyful secret that they keep.

Last year, the girls received needle felted Nativity animals that I made to accompany the stories. Those sheep will come out tonight. We got the donkeys out last night.

I am still waiting for our Mary's Little Donkey Advent Calendar, but when it arrives, we will be sharing an Advent story in the morning and one at night, as well. There are just so many wonderful stories out there - it's really hard not to bombard!

So until tomorrow, have a blessed night!