Seeking Family Simplicity During the Holidays
How do we celebrate seasonal holidays and avoid the mine-field of commercial culture that so easily invades our family life? Let the Holiday Happen at Home! Especially during the holiday crush, you’ll do best to keep all your normal life-rhythms steady: meal times, play times, house-keeping, book snuggles, nap and bedtimes. As we know, sharing food together, playing in a healthy way and sound sleep are the foundations of well-being.
During the holiday rush, let’s create meal-times that nourish the soul as well as the body. We can speak to the spirit of the season in warm home-made ways and stay steady with our usual mealtime rhythms. Less is more, so keep things simple. You’ll find you need to make very few forays into the consumer-culture, because you are creating memories with your own hands and heart. For instance, celebrate the joy of the season with a seasonal table cloth, or with a seasonal wreath placed as a center piece. As I have described in my book Heaven on Earth, I’ve made wonderful seasonal tablecloths by buying beautifully colored seasonal prints in the correct yardage for the table. Sew up an easy hem, and voila’, you have an instant visual cue that it is time to celebrate. Keep the dinnerware white and it will go with every seasonal table cloth you make. Buy or make a right-sized grapevine wreath for the centerpiece. Each week leading up to your Winter Festival of Light, add different elements from the natural world: sparkling minerals, pinecones and greenery, holly berries, small seashells or carved wooden animals. Add one candle each week and watch the light grow.
Cooking the holiday meal together can be part of the holiday fun. Decide the menu, then go slowly and allow time for the children to help with mixing, chopping, carrying and such. Freeze ahead of time dishes that allow for it; this helps you to go slowly, to include the children and to enjoy. A wonderful “festive food” for the winter holidays is to bake and decorate a gingerbread house village. You don’t need to decorate with sugar and candies. In the picture below you see a small child-created house built with graham crackers and decorated with colorful interesting shaped pasta! The day after the festive meal, the children will love eating the house walls and then putting the rest out for the “birds’ holiday.”
Family work may sound dull and not conducive to the holiday spirit, but if you plan well, you may be surprised! If you show enthusiasm your children will love to help you prepare the festive space. It can be enticing to do a special holiday cleaning. I remember as a little girl it was my job, because I was the smallest, to “dust the baseboards.” I got to crawl behind all the furniture, capture the dust bunnies and make even the lowliest places sparkle. Shining wooden furniture, going to the attic for holiday boxes, tidying and organizing bedrooms ~ all of this can be part of preparing for the wonder of the holiday. Remember this motto: make the work visible; when we engage in our work with pleasure, it inspires the same in our children.
You might want to signify the season during play time by joining me in the following play activity. When I was a child, our family celebrated Christmas, and our home was decorated with lovely holiday ornaments. But, much to our dismay, they were meant only for decoration and not to be touched by my brothers and me. I righted this “wrong” as an adult by making or buying ornaments that were sturdy enough for child’s play! In our home and in my classroom, at the beginning of the season I unveiled a basket of ornaments made of wood, felt, wool, decorated pinecones, shining seashells, golden walnuts and more. Softly made Santa and Elves rode in a wooden toy train. Small velvet ponies and tiny stuffed teddy bears were ready to spark winter-time imaginations. Many winter woodland scenes arose, and even winter puppet plays were created by the children. The simple act of bringing out this basket of winter toys, which is put away to “rest” after the holidays, can be as exciting as a trip to see decorations at the mall. And far more conducive to creativity; the fun can go on for weeks!
If we keep the mealtimes and play times steady and rhythmic, while bringing in elements that are festive and fun, this will make bed-time much easier! Even though it is the holidays and children are begging for later bedtimes, it is best to stay with your regular evening rituals and routines. A warm bubble bath, fluffy towel-drying and some firm, slow lotion-ing will set the tone. Now again at story-time you bring in the holiday spirit. Google “Waldorf Holiday Books” to discover a wonderful treasure trove of holiday stories!
If we let the holidays happen at home, we will be creating not only a strong foundation of family life, we will be making memories to last forever! May you enjoy this holiday season and many more seasonal festivals by keeping activities hand-made and close to home.
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