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Even under regular circumstances, an area of child rearing that can present a disproportionate amount of challenges is sleep- both naps and bedtime. Starting at an early age, kids attempt to push the boundaries surrounding sleep, and it can become a point of stress for all parties involved. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, 2 year olds need 12-14 hours of sleep, while children ages 3-5 years need 10-13 hours of sleep per 24 hour period. It is very rare for a child to thrive on 10 hours of sleep. Most children need the middle range of 11 -13 hours to be their at their physical and emotional best. When the family routine deviates from normal and/or there is anxiety in the household the need for sleep is amplified, due to its ability to lower stress hormones and restore emotional equilibrium. In times of illness sleep also becomes more important because of its positive effect on heightened immune function. With this all in mind, we would like to share this thorough and helpful essay from Mama Christina to support your nap and bedtime experiences.

I hope that nap time is seamless, easy and restful. It is an important piece of the day’s rhythm that can aid in more than just sustained energy and helping children feel cozy and warm.  It aids in cooperative behavior, integrating new skills and information, and providing much needed physiological support as well. That is just the positive pay off for immediate outcomes. It also teaches self-regulation, builds self-care strategies for rest and breathing, and helps with sequencing in its structure of preparing for nap, reading, singing by the adult, resting or sleep and nap time clean up. 

Just in case nap time at home is not yet in rhythm or so far in chaos that everyone lands exhausted from the battle, some rationale behind nap time’s plan in the curriculum may freshen your resolve to make it work more smoothly. There are some practices that can help to ready children for nap and help them to stay there for the designed time. In addition, I’d like to offer some encouragement for your own growth and development that might be gained by establishing and holding nap time. 

It may sound strange at first to think of nap time as curriculum, but it is just that. The teaching points (all unspoken to the children, of course) are self-regulation, learning to rest between tasks, integration that both NREM and REM dream time provides, as well as some esoteric possibilities such as meeting with our angels. I especially like this last possibility. Who wouldn’t want to have a chat with an angel, especially their very own assigned angel? I know this last point is not for everyone.  (Though, our subconscious and unconscious work to sort out and integrate issues that are troubling us, so that can perhaps be seen as angelic in nature.) Dream time helps to mediate conflicting ideas and reveals how our lives make sense, even if we are hit by a whole slew of unexpected challenges such as the present moment provides. Well-being depends on integrating and is relevant for everyone, even when you’re only 3. 

Here are some strategies to help nap time happen:

Become consistent, and be characterized by calm and deep breathing. When the children sleep in my classroom—and nearly all of the children sleep everyday—they usually fall asleep in 5-10 minutes for 2 and 3-year olds, usually within 20 minutes for 4-6 year olds. They typically sleep the entire time, which is an hour and a half. We put nap things out before lunch, as the activity of putting out nap things (mats, blankets, pillows) is too active to directly proceed nap. 

Each day nap rhythm is the same in the following ways: 

The children clear from lunch, wash up, and use the bathroom. Pottying before nap is especially important so that children are not getting up during nap and interrupting their sleep.  They “read” or look at one book that is very calm and does not have stimulating content. We darken the room, tuck in, and sing or hum softly. 

A few extra points for you to keep in mind for home:

There is no conversation during this time, as conversation is awakening and enlivening. Keep toys away from bed except for a single snuggly. If the snuggly is too rambunctious, have this little fellow sleep off to the side or ask your child to help their animal to calm down so that the two of them can take their nap together. Be firm. If the snuggle fellow keeps bouncing, put him to sleep elsewhere (with his pillow and blanket). Sometimes a hand on a child’s tummy or simply sitting beside them with your eyes closed can help to ground them until they fall asleep. Each child is different. For some, sitting beside them will keep them awake and engaged. You will know what is best. 

About adult self-care:

A constant endeavor for parents is managing to meet their own needs while taking the best care of their children. If you haven’t already, plan for this nap time to be a restorative time for you as well as for your child. Even if you need to do earning work during this narrow timeframe when your child is safe and cared for in sleep, that feeling (that you are taking care of your family in this other way, the way that pays the bills) can take off stress, give you a different sort of activity from parenting, and free you up to be more present when your child wakes. 

If your earning is taken care of without your help at this time, then nap time can open out to other kinds of restorative practices, such as your own well-earned nap. Perhaps after that catnap (or long nap), you have time to journal about these extraordinary days or meditate. Or, it may be a time when you will be eased if you can get the supper chopping and prepping done. It may be that napping time for your child must be a productive time for you, but even this sense of accomplishment after your 10-minute rest can feel refreshing. You can afford to spend 5 minutes reading what you love—not news feeds or must-reads, but 5 minutes of reading just because you love essays on flora of the Midwest or the history of color. 

When LifeWays calls Life the curriculum in its pedagogy, it is us adults as well as our children who are learning how to do life, including how we rest and breathe and take advantage of our unconscious dream time to heal and integrate. 

We would also like to share this helpful video from Helle Heckman.

We share with you some pieces of our usual spring circle. For the children, this is a delightful dance of in-breath and out-breath, flowing with chaos and opening to a light-filled peace. For us adults, the storminess juxtaposed the temperate weather of this circle may reflect what we are experiencing in the world currently–and consequently in ourselves. This circle ends with a partnered game that gives children an important tactile experience, while we can see the metaphor of feeling the rains come down on us, but allowing it to “fly away.” We encourage you to end with a warm embrace to complete this connecting moment.

SONG:
Rain is dropping, rain is dropping.
Now the sun shines clear. 
Rain is dropping, rain is dropping.
Now the sun shines clear. 

Clouds are sailing, clouds are sailing.
Now the sun shines clear. 

Wind is blowing, wind is blowing, wind is blowing.
Now the sun shines clear. 

(Repeat all)

VERSE/HAND GAME:
10 little raindrops dancing on the walk.
Pitter patter, pitter patter.
That’s the way they talk.

Out comes a burst of wind, 
Blowing through the sky.
And away all the raindrops fly, fly, fly.

With rain or sunshine outdoors, we can all enjoy this sunny activity- making Lemon Sugar Scrub. Mix together with your children to use at bath time or give as a gift!

Ingredients:
One lemon, zest and juice
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/4 cup coconut oil, heated

Instructions:
In a medium sized bowl, juice and zest your lemon. Heat coconut oil on stove top or in microwave for 15 seconds, stir. In your bowl with the lemon juice and zest, combine sugar, olive oil, and coconut oil. Mix well. Store in an airtight container.

Puppet shows can seem daunting, but enlivening a story with a few props or puppets can be very simple and informal. There is a richness and magic that comes with a more elaborate set-up, practice, and know-how, but a story truly comes alive in a child’s imagination. Bringing what you can still nourishes your child’s experience of the story and deepens their relationship with it. And it adds some whimsy to our adult lives!

Here are a few household items that you can easily gather to enliven your reading or telling of Grandma’s Hat. This collection includes a handmade wool mouse puppet that we have included pictorial instructions for making at home. We have also included a template of Grandma’s Hat made from paper. Thank you to Mama Christina for creating this for us!

Instructions for creating a wool mouse puppet:

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Template for Grandma’s Hat made of paper:

And, lastly, a sweet spring song to learn and share with your child at any time!

Spring is coming, spring is coming!
Birdies build your nest.
Weave together straw and feather,
Each one doing their best.

Spring is coming, spring is coming!
Flowers are all in bloom.
Tulips, Lillies, daffodillies,
All are coming through.

The song is called May Song, and it’s sung in many Waldorf early childhood classrooms, though I am uncertain of it’s origin.

Along with crafts, recipes, stories and songs, we will also share with you some content that we hope will anchor your days with encouragement and support on the adult front. Today Mama Christina writes about rhythm and routine. She offers a very rich, in-depth perspective of the importance of rhythm, but also some essential components to make your rhythm work well.

If you are needing some support on where to start in creating a healthy rhythm for your home, Lisa Boisvert Mackenzie has written a very practical article for LifeWays that you can read here. Also, Mothering Arts collaborates with LifeWays North America in a wonderful, very affordable online course on building Healthy Home Rhythms that is accessible all the time and moves at your own pace.

Dear Families,

Okay. I have my tea. This is a cozy topic so if you want to go and find the liquorice chai tea concoction and whip it up, take a moment…

As you begin or continue your teaching practice—for that is what you are doing—we realise the number of pieces to the teaching puzzle that makes up a LifeWays practice are many and varied. There is child development, philosophical and pedagogical components, social aspects, and so forth. They are all also integrated. So if we can share a few of the contributing underpinnings, this may help to build your practice in ways that you love and find meaningful. In this blog, we want to share some thoughts, beliefs and ideas about how Rhythm and Routine can be built into your teaching practice with your children.

In a culture and historical moment that priorities the New, the familiar is not necessarily views with equal enticement as is the “next best thing.” The built relationship with particular activities such as our relationship with traditions, with daily rituals and tasks, with language (prayers, verses, songs, stories, even conversation) can be lost in the sea of novelty. These relationships takes time and effort to create. Take for instance, language: words are first chosen deliberately (this verse, that blessing, this story), words are repeated and deepened over time, taken to heart and memorized, recited with reverence and with those we love. They are experienced with love for their textural cultural familiarity. The way the words resonate, the sense experience that lives over and over in our bodies and brains—create relationship that is nourishing. Like the relationship we build with different language experiences, a well-developed Rhythm and Routine take time, patience and perseverance. It is a worthy striving, for Rhythm and Routine are fundamental for calm, mindful and deliberate values-driven experience. They build safety, security, cultural competence, skill, inner resources, relationship, and love for own home traditions. They help alleviate stress, head off behaviour problems, and regulate mood. Rhythm and Routine are powerful tools as well as being cozy. What are they? How do we build them into the life school-at-home? 

A routine is simply a regular, regulated way of doing things: structuring bath time, inventing dinner, tending the garden, transitioning in and out of play. We build routines by doing specific activities at regular times on these days with these tools, together and sometimes independently. This activity is typically preceded by that activity and this 3rd activity most often follows it. We schedule our activities with a breathing in/breathing out rhythm in order to both take in nourishment and expel energy. We give, and then we take in. We contribute, and then we rest. We sing or speak, and then we listen, and then we sing, and then we listen. This rhythm of taking in and expending matches our breath. It is a bit like a dance, moving in and out in choreographed and sometimes surprising steps. And missteps. Don’t worry when the rhythm goes awry; you will re-establish it, fine tune it, carve it into something that feels like your family rhythm. It takes a bit of intention and looking at the individual pieces of the day, giving them structure and beauty, sticking to them so they get established and changing them as needed. 

For instance, let’s look at dinner. We have food prep with its minutia: gathering the herbs from the garden, chopping, washing veggies, stirring the soup, washing the cutting boards and sinks, turning the pot on low. Then there is setting the table: gathering the napkins, utensils, plates and glasses and placing them at the table, checking for neatness, gathering flowers on Mondays perhaps for the centre. Next we are putting away pre-dinner activities while the soup simmers, washing hands and combing hair. Once gathered, we are reviewing the day or sharing a verse or prayer, serving, eating and conversing. Lastly, we clean up together: each one going to their weekly after-dinner chore, with little ones being supported in their chore and, then, transitioning into the bedtime routine. The familiar rhythm of this routine daily event and the Mood with which it occurs, day after day, gives it a flavour that defines and deepens our family life and history. It builds our own relationship with food and gathering, with the garden and chores. It creates the biographies of our children around family life and themselves as participants, willing or no. 

It is the mood with which we bring Rhythm and Routine that takes these elements from simply scheduled time to meaningful, nourishing family-owned ways of being in the world. A schedule becomes, with the intentional mood of the adults, the holding, secure rhythm of Our Family Life. So consider this as you both invent and live your routines and rhythms. The poet/writer Kathleen Norris, in her book Quotidian Mysteries* fleshes out the intent to make every household activity a meditation, from doing the laundry to sweeping the floor to tending the garden. It is that kind of intention that allows a routine to gain rooted meaning. 

This is where your work in clarifying and living your values comes into play in actions as mundane (of the world) as setting the table, cleaning up the toys, dressing the doll, etc. Knowing the mood you want to permeate your family life allows you to invent both meaningful routines and to build a rhythm that makes them light and sweet. So begin with clarifying, and then bringing that mood to the routine you have decided is meaningful (and workable). 

*Kathleen Norris’s Quotidian Mysteries was published by Paulist Press, 1998, Mahwaj, NJ

Dear Families,
Here is a protection story for families from Suzanne Down’s website. (The protection story is just right, as Suzanne says, for this particular moment.) She generously shares her stories on her website. I hope you enjoy this for your storytelling.  As a teachers at Rose Rock, I utilize a process to learn a story by heart and enliven it. As you are at home with the children at this time I understand you haven’t quite the same capacity. Typically our prep for a story might look like this:  reading the story to myself several times to find its rhythms and just to master the story content, letting it rest in my mind, reading it again; telling it to myself and then telling it to the children, with great calm, with story props or hand gestures and without drama. The more times I tell it over a 3-week cycle, the more I develop a sense of its rhythm and nuance. 

Even if you print out the story on some lovely paper and read it, you can still practice and strive for making the story your own by finding its pulse, allowing its images to fill your mind.  Before reading the story, pick a time before bed or snack in which the mood can be set with warmth and calmness, and read or tell it at that same time every day. When reading it, speak with a calm voice, without drama, and then allow for some quiet time (without any other books) so that your child may digest and live into the story as well.  After a couple weeks, whether you had set out to memorize the story or not, you may find that the story is living in you anyway and there it will be for anytime your child needs a moment to connect.  Have fun!

This is a true tale, inspired by my own mother who lost her straw hat in the wind one day.  The seasons came and went, and one day, on a walk with my dad on their land, they came upon the hat.  As in this story, it was covered with growing plants, and they found a mouse nest inside.  It was magical.  My mom still wears straw hats – I wonder if more adventures in nature await her.

Grandma’s Hat

Once there was a grandmother who loved to garden.  It was a lovely summer morning, and she went outside to work in her garden.  The garden beds were already overflowing with fresh, colorful vegetables and flowers.  Butterflies and ladybugs nestled on the leaves and blossoms, and bees happily buzzed as they sipped the sweet nectar.  Grandmother knelt down to weed the rows of carrots and beets, and then started to pick enough lettuce for a salad for lunch.  Already the  sun was hot, and she took off her straw hat to cool off. 

Suddenly, a gust of wind whirled and twirled over the garden, and picked up her hat and blew it here and there, high and low!  Grandmother started to chase after her hat,  she reached high, she reached low, but the wind blew it higher and higher, and finally away from sight.

‘Oh my old straw hat,’ laughed Grandmother, ‘ it was a good hat for many years, now it deserves a little adventure!”   She kept on laughing as she picked up her basket of lettuce, and went inside to make her lunch.  ‘What a fun little tale to tell my grandchildren!’

Meanwhile, the wind blew the hat far away from the garden, over a forest of aspen trees, and finally settled it down in a lovely peaceful meadow full of summer wildflowers.  It was a happy place to land, and the hat was content to sit there and enjoy the blue sky, and sweet smells of the flowers.

Summer turned to Autumn, and the golden leaves of the aspen trees fluttered in the breezes and settled down all over the meadow, and covered the hat with a blanket of gold. 

Autumn turned chilly and soon after the first frost, beautiful white snowflakes fell over the land, and the hat was covered with a blanket of white snow.

The snow fell all through the winter months, and the hat rested still, under many blankets of snow.

The spring sun began to warm the snow, and slowly, slowly, the snow began to melt, and the straw hat was able to peek out at the meadow in springtime.  The rains of spring came, and the grass greened, and spring flowers started to grow all over the meadow.  Some of the grasses and flowers started to grow in and out of the straw hat.  The hat was pleased to become so lovely. 

And when summer came again, with the sun high in the sky, and long hot days filled the meadow, the straw hat had become a beautiful garden.  How happy the little hat was.  Then one day a little mouse appeared in the meadow.  When mouse saw the straw hat garden, he thought, ‘ this might make a fine house for me’.  Mouse went closer and climbed all over the straw hat, and even nibbled a little hole in the hat, like a window, and looked inside.  Oh my, what a big room and high ceiling there was.  Yes indeed, mouse had found a wonderful house. 

He went all through the meadow gathering soft feathers, and flower petals, he went into the forest to find some moss, and brought them all back to his new house, and went through the little window and made a soft nest to sleep in on the floor of the big room. 

When his nest was finished, mouse looked out the window of his house.  The sun was beginning to set, and the last warm golden rays of sunshine settled on the meadow, and on the straw hat house.  Mouse looked out for a long time, until the night sky began to grow deep blue, and the stars twinkled over the meadow and the straw hat house.  All was well, and mouse was happy in his new home.  He had one last look out at the beautiful world and said, ‘Good Night Meadowland’.  Then he settled down in his wee soft cozy nest, in the big room with the high ceiling of his new straw hat house.  How peaceful it was.

Suzanne Down publishes a blog, a website, holds courses for parents and early childhood teachers and regularly shares some a story she has created with young children in mind. You can see her other resources on Juniper Tree Puppets.

In the coming weeks as some of you remain together at home, we will be extending our support to you in the format of these blog posts. Thank you to the work of Mama Christina, we will share pieces of the Rose Rock curriculum that you can implement in your homes. We will also include some adult content, so that you may learn more about the LifeWays foundation of “life as the curriculum”. Like little sprouts awakening in the Spring, this blogging endeavor will be a time for us to grow and stretch–toward the ideal and the beautiful.

It may not feel like a time to be joyful when you are caught in the storm of adult experiences– inundated with news updates and stalked by anxiety. However, at times like these, it is critical for us to protect and cultivate reverence, gratitude, love, calm, and joy–for the sake of our sanity and for the health and vitality of our children. With adaptability, inner strength, and equanimity, we can become the calm in the storm for our families. We all have the ability to find reason to genuinely rejoice each day, to slow down and give our children the best parts of ourselves.

With love and solidarity,

Acacia and Shanah

Today we would like to share with you a song that is both joyful and empowering for everyone! Allison Davies , neurologic music therapist and brain care specialist, shared it on her Facebook page and YouTube channel. If you can, we encourage you to listen to her Facebook post as it gives you a little bit of information about why the song is so darn helpful! You can learn more about Allison Davies at allisondavies.com.au

We would also like to share a recipe for a tasty caffiene-free, immune-boosting Licorice Chai tea latte. Thank you to Dr. Heidi Lescanec, naturopathic doctor and culinary nutritionist, for sharing it on her website. She explains the benefits for licorice root in her posting, and the benefit for you is that it is easy to make with children and mixed with a glass of cold milk, the latte is a crowd-pleaser!

As the new year gets underway, we wanted to share a picture of a particular piece of the nourishing curriculum we craft. As a LifeWays program and as a school with a deep respect for the needs of the growing child, one of the areas we focus on each day is how we feed the children here at Rose Rock. As you likely know, we have always cooked with all organic options that are available. This year, we have been working with a mostly vegan menu, something our very kind cook, Ann, has been learning and inventing since early Fall.  Some of you may wonder why we have chosen a mostly vegan menu or why we do not opt to have more lunchbox meals alongside a “hot lunch program”, like the typical school offerings.  

Our aim is to create a home-like experience for the children–life is the curriculum, home is the model. This means we eat family-style meals, all served from the same dishes of food, just like one would traditionally be served at home. This can become complicated when we need to consider a variety of dietary needs and family preferences.

Yet, we feel strongly that what we provide for the children is nourishing for all on a number of levels. 

How do we determine what food is nourishing for all? We are looking out, of course, for those various nutrients that foster strong physical bodies.  We cover the basics like filtered water, and a variety of vegetables and fruits daily.  We emphasize the whole grain vitamin B sources that promote cognitive function, generate brain cells and healthy skin, and help convert food into energy.  We provide proteins that build and replenish basic physiology from plant-based sources and chicken (on Thursdays). We eat plenty of healthy fats that provide long-term energy, support cell growth and hormone production, aid in the absorption of many vitamins and nutrients, and help keep our organs warm. We have an awareness of where the food we eat is sourced from as well, which is in part why we opt to select organic foods and grow a vegetable garden. And we stick to whole foods, eliminating most processed boxed foods, additives, preservatives, processed sugars and unhealthy fats.  

Here is a brief breakdown of two days snack and lunch picture:

• Day one
  • morning snack of honey-sweetened coconut yogurt with blueberries and granola provides a moderate amount of healthy fats and some protein as well as a significant amount of calcium, vitamin D2 & B12, magnesium and antioxidants.  
  • Lunch of Pad Thai rice pasta with broccoli and tofu provides a moderate amount of protein, plenty of carbohydrates for fast energy, and significant amounts of calcium, iron, magnesium, vitamins K & C, essential amino acids and antioxidants.
•  Day two
  • morning snack of sprouted multigrain bagel spread with Earth Balance, and served with raisins and a clementine provide a substantial amount of protein, healthy fats, all nine essential amino acids, B vitamins and vitamin C, as well as plenty of fiber. 
  • Lunch of Wild rice and mushroom soup with peas and carrots on the side provides, again, a substantial amount of protein and carbohydrates for fast and long-term energy, as well as vitamin A (beta carotene), vitamin K, dozens of minerals, antioxidants and immune-boosting compounds.  

Keeping in mind that the daily protein need for children ages 4 to 9 years of age is 19 grams, from just the 2 meals Rose Rock serves all children, we are able to cover more than half of your child’s protein needs. If your child has an afternoon snack with us, they pull in another 3 to 5 grams of protein on average with items like pumpkin seeds and sunflower butter. Pumpkin seeds also contain a range of other nutrients such as iron, selenium, the B vitamins, beta-carotene, zinc,  magnesium, and calcium. Magnesium can help with sleep health. Calcium is busy building bones, of course, but also contributes to neuro-health, along with the healthy fats.  

No matter what we are serving, we are constantly considering what is best for the whole child and the whole group.  Sometimes we make compromises to our personal family choices, but we never compromise on the children’s well-being.

Furthermore, the importance of a family-style meal reaches beyond the nutritional content of the food. We must consider, too, what gesture we are creating at the table.  We want it to be one of gratitude and goodness. 

The young child’s perception of the world and each other must be focused on what is good and what unites us. A meal in which the children are eating different things, or too many different versions of the same meal places emphasis instead upon differences. Our time together is quickly monopolized by conversation pieces such as

“Why can’t I eat what she has?” 

“He’s allergic”- “No, I’m not, I’m intolerant.”-”What’s intolerant? What’s allergic?” 

“Why doesn’t his family eat meat? I want what he is having”

The experience leads children into a cognitive space of discernment they are not yet ready for. It opens the door to judgement and divisiveness. 

Sharing the same meal, on the other hand, places the focus on the good things that nourish us all.

Take for example, the applesauce we eat on Wednesday mornings.  This applesauce is a collaborative effort: the children chop apples every Monday and Ann cooks them into sauce to serve aside multigrain english muffins with butter and jam.  When we eat our applesauce on Wednesdays, the children almost always recall for each other how they worked to chop the apples. They talk about how good it tastes and how it is their favorite morning snack.  Our time is filled with sharing and gratitude. 

Feeding an entire school of children coming from a wide variety of families and backgrounds, is no small task.  It takes consciousness and continual re-evaluation to determine how each meal will contribute to the health and well-being of the child, just as every meaningful task, affectionate squeeze, hour of sleep or moment of play does, too.  

Starting a family tradition can feel daunting at times. We start with an idea, then begin to imagine what it will look like: When? Who is involved? What will we do? How will we do it? Caught up in the excitement we may build a great imagination of it, accidentally viewing it years down the road. It’s elaborate, it’s established, and already we can see the fruits of our labor. But, wait. We haven’t even started yet. All that looks glorious, and all that looks difficult to pull off. We finish our plans with a sense of disappointment with ourselves, convinced we simply couldn’t manage all that.

And, yet….. Could we maybe take a step back from the story for a moment? Because that’s what it has become at that point- just a story. It can be difficult to recognize when we slip into creating the story instead of creating real life, but it’s an important step. In the story we have all sorts of what-ifs, in real life we have simply what happens. And, sometimes, simply what we can make do with.

Family traditions- as you can read in our series- can be simple or complex. But the complex usually take years to become. What makes it glorious is when you start with an idea and take the next step, whatever the activity is, to be together. Make space to let the moments shine through the chatter of your story. Open your heart to see and revere it. Then, take the greater step of doing it again. And again. And again. Before you know it, you are years down the road brimming with gratitude as you take it what has been created.

It’s as simple, perhaps, as just a walk out the door……

Holidays and festivals are rich with meaning and purpose, lending themselves easily as a time and space of tradition and ritual. In honor of this holiday season and the diversity of families we have at Rose Rock, we will take the next several weeks to feature some of their traditions and rituals. These may be traditions of long ago, cherished and kept since childhood, or they may be freshly created for our own children. They may be centered in one festival or holiday, or they may be simple rituals that uplift our daily lives during this time of year. All of them are special ways we create our family cultures. We invite you to relish in them as we do and be inspired to begin your own.

One of my children’s favorite traditions during the holidays is going out on our land as a family to find the perfect Christmas tree. Red cedar trees grow quickly, and may be considered invasive in our region, so they make a perfect choice for a locally harvested tree.

For our five year old, it’s never too early to start looking for the best tree- she will casually remark on this tree or that even in the middle of summer! Our hunt begins in earnest, though, around the middle of December. This year we found one approximately 7′ tall that, once pruned of some ragged lower branches, made the perfect fit in our home.  After it was placed in the spot of honor, I caught one of our little ones quietly singing “Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree, how lovely are your branches.”     

This sweet moment reminded me that perhaps we should be more like the child who sees a potential Christmas tree in every scraggly evergreen,  and look for the good in one another, not only during the holiday season, but all year round. 

From our family to yours, happy holidays!

By Elizabeth Cupp, wife to Trevor Cupp, mom to Penelope and Heidi

Holidays and festivals are rich with meaning and purpose, lending themselves easily as a time and space of tradition and ritual. In honor of this holiday season and the diversity of families we have at Rose Rock, we will take the next several weeks to feature some of their traditions and rituals. These may be traditions of long ago, cherished and kept since childhood, or they may be freshly created for our own children. They may be centered in one festival or holiday, or they may be simple rituals that uplift our daily lives during this time of year. All of them are special ways we create our family cultures. We invite you to relish in them as we do and be inspired to begin your own.

Winter Solstice marks the shortest period of daylight in the year but with each day there is more and more light. This is not a holiday that my family celebrated growing up, but it is one that Rob wanted to bring into our family and I loved the idea of having something that is intimate to just our household, separate from the hustle and bustle that is the rest of the holiday season. So far we haven’t filled this day with plans and anticipation, we simply make sure to acknowledge it. We make an effort to have a quiet evening at home, with a simply cooked meal. The main goal is to turn off all the other things that can pull at us on any given evening and to focus on one another as a family.

We have added small rituals along the way, really just inviting one another to contribute ideas to what might make the night special for us as a family. Some have stuck and others haven’t. In the past we’ve baked something sweet like cookies, pies, or cakes. Sometimes we take a nighttime walk through the neighborhood to look at holiday lights. One year we all got new pajamas to wear and we wore them while watching the sunset on the back porch. The past two years we have exchanged books and chocolates. 

The most long-standing ritual is to choose a live plant on this evening and dub it the “solstice tree.” In the past this has been a number of plant types depending on what we can find. Of course we’ve purchased small conifers before, but one time we brought in a patch of moss from our yard. We’ve also used collard tree starters for the vegetable garden. This year we purchased a fig tree. We keep this plant alive indoors all winter as a reminder of life, that the earth will warm again to bountiful times in the spring. When it is warm enough, we plant our solstice tree outside in the garden. 

Written by Shayna Pond, wife to Rob Vollmar and mother to Eleanor and, their new baby, Liliana.