minutes read To new beginnings, right? I always liked new years because it’s a good excuse to make the people I love happy. And I love to see them excited, happy, pleasantly surprised, touched…
I never wish people “health and happiness” because it just seems too cliché – I prefer personalized wishes but since I don’t know you all here are some weird wishes that are hopefully useful to you:).
Now that I’ve done that I can focus on myself for a bit and fill in all my goals that I’ve set up in my bullet journal yearly planning. I’ll tell you more about what I’ve come up with and how I want to set up my days when I do the work but for now I want to wish you things that you might want but don’t ever get mentioned… I wish you that – the traffic runs smoothly – especially when you are in a hurry – the doctor’s results are always negative and teachers/clients/boss’s responses are positive – you get the quiet when you need it and have enough patience to put up with loudness when the first wish doesn’t come true;) – the loudness would be from fun and laughter, not pain, anger or sorrow – you find your favourite candy in the store – the cashier/co-worker/random stranger smiles at you on the day you especially need it – you start to enjoy what is good for you – don’t feel guilty when you enjoy something that is not (good for you;)
I have written about December traditions in November but there are some we do particularly on new years eve. I understand that most people usually party on new years but for us it’s a family holiday (like Christmas for others) and our kids don’t want that to change even though by now they all know everything about Grandpa Frost (or so I would hope;).
Slavic gift bearer – Grandpa Frost visits us on Silvester’s eve.
When you are planning a New Year’s party you have to think about the people invited, of course. Is this a big party with several generations or a wild young adult party or a family party? The approaches would be different but there is more crossover than you might expect. More on that in the games down bellow. You’ll need to adapt some ideas to suit a certain demographic, of course and for adults you might plan an after midnight activity while the kids will probably head to bed after watching the fireworks… but there are some things that most people would enjoy – let me list a few:).
The vast majority of the world celebrates New Year – and each part does it differently.
Food: most of us love food. Not all to the same degree but most of people I knew like to eat good food and food has a big part in every holiday celebration I have ever heard of – except Vesak – devout Buddhist are a different kind of people. But for the new year’s food is big. But to enjoy the party yourselves you might want to consider what kind of food you’ll serve. Something that is easy to clean up seems appropriate. If you don’t want to spend too much time in the kitchen beforehand, you could also think about raclette, fondue and other kind of foods that guests take part of at the table. That is especially great for parties where people don’t know each other well because it gives guests something to do, there is no awkward silence, staring at each other and waiting for the next plate – because there is something happening all the time and it can be really fun!
Food is always an important part of parties. Choose something easy to grab:).
We have a family tradition that we eat a fondue one year and raclette the next. We always forget which turn is it and look at the pictures from previous year :D. The contents are different every year but there is always one of those gadgets. The benefits are that we can prepare the food together without too much interference, there is not much clean up, it is special (because we don’t drag those things out every day) and it is fun!
We always eat fondue or raclette for our dinner on Silvester’s eve.
Or you can decorate food in a festive way. Once I made a stuffed bread in the shape of a Christmas tree at my dad’s when we were visiting for the new year and that is becoming a tradition now, as well. Play around with food. If your bank account is slim after the holidays, don’t break your piggy bank, bake homemade bread, put some cherry tomatoes and cheese on it and it will be special and very very tasty! You don’t need a lot to make your loved ones feel special:).
I saw something similar on Pinterest years ago, made it once and “it became a tradition” immediately:).
In the evening hours and especially if you have young kids who can’t wait for the clock to move count downs can be very fun and are another zero or very low cost activity! You only need a couple of pieces of paper and you can make a fun count down. If you want to dress it up, roll up the papers in balloons and pop one each hour. On those papers you can write funny activities to do (like dance like a duck, draw yourself with your eyes closed, etc…)
This was our funny way to let the kids know about our trip to London – but you could make into a countdown easily.
Games: these depend on your audience, of course, but one of the best parties I have ever attended was a party where two “soon-to-be” kindergarten teachers (students of education for early years in primary school) were planning our fun. We had a blast even though there was hardly any alcohol there (which was really rare here back in the day) and we ate cheap food (we were all students and high schoolers with very limited budgets). It was great, though! So don’t underestimate the power of kids games;). If you want something “more adult”, you could go with either board games or some psychological game. If all else fails, pantomime is always fun!
It’s about time to wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, right? We celebrated Christmas at my dad’s place and he’s a big bread and meat lover. Since we didn’t decorate his house (it’s his house after all and grandpas are not so keen on kids’ decorations all over the place;), we decided to decorate the food instead:)
Our first chaucherie on a beautiful wooden board.
So we made a “chaucherie“. He has this beautiful wooden board in the shape of a leaf and we filled it to the rim with cheese (normal, mozzarella, and blue cheese), meats (prosciutto and salami), veggies (carrots, cucumber, mini tomatoes,…) pickles, and herbs (sage and rosemary), and a tiny cottage from cottage cheese spread…
Christmas tree bread – healthy and very delicious!
Because I have to complicate things and because I made this once and it “instantly became a tradition” I baked a “Christmas tree bread“. I made bread dough, divided it into 23 parts and we wrapped each part around a mozzarella ball to form these cheese-stuffed bread buns. Kids loved this part – it’s so satisfying rolling the bread in your hands! Then I just arranged the balls in the shape of a pine tree and baked the bread. When it was baked, I spread pesto all over the upper green part, added some grated cheese for the ground and on top for the star (with one more mozzarella ball), and some cherry tomatoes for the Christmas baubles.
Kids loved preparing the board together.
Kids cut the veggies, I mixed the “Liptaver” spread (cottage cheese with grated cheese and herbs) and we arranged everything onto the board (the spread was on a small plate and I tried to shape it into a house with salami roof shingles.
Our holiday lunch/dinner:) – chaucherie board and stuffed bread with pesto and tomatoes.
You see – this is not a particularly expensive lunch – but it was sure something special! Especially for the kids – who helped with making it:). They always love this tree and we’ve seen so many beautifully arranged boards with delicacies on Pinterest that we had to try it! This is how the memories are born:). The little ones – that we remember – we tend to remember things around food:D. Happy holidays!
minutes read Celebrating solstice is an old pagan practice that many many cultures knew and even now, a lot of holidays derive from solstice tradition – including the date – Christmas and Hanukah are very close to solstice which usually happens on 21th of December and according to historians that is not a coincidence but a way to introduce a new religion into old pagan practices. I love it because it is based in nature and science and I simply love the fact that days will get longer again:). Besides, there are some wonderful traditions around solstice!
We can bring in some magic to the darkest days wit a simple and gentile tradition borrowed from pagans.
Winter solsticeis not celebrated here now but I found some practices that we’ve weaved into our lives that are so touching and magical. One of those traditions is the spiral from greenery that I have written about last year. We always do it for my “winter baby’s” birthday (she’s not a baby anymore;). I did it once for her bd party and she loved it and every single kid was mesmerized – I couldn’t believe that we can just create something like that for them… Now she wants it every year:) But traditionally it was done at solstice so if you know any kids or other people who might love it, do it – you won’t regret it! It’s free magic!
Yule’s log was traditionally a real log, decorated with natural material and candles.
Another winter solstice tradition was decorating the Yule’s log. Yul was an old pagan god and people decorated a tree stump in the forest with natural materials and candles in his honour. Later on, a chef came up with a food version of Yule’s log and this is now a pretty known Christmas treat.
Nowadays Yule’s log is a chocolate roulade with chocolate ganache.
We always bake a Yule’s log for winter solstice – our elves usually fill the advent calendar truck with some edible decorations – either the sugary silver balls, powdered sugar or a recipe. Roulades are great because they are quick to bake and to cool down so you can make the whole thing very quickly – even with kids under your feet;).
Even grown ups are enchanted but it really mesmerized kids every single time!
Modern pagans still exist and celebrate winter solstice in many other ways – usually with candles, crystals, decorations from natural materials, incense,… The rituals usually involve some kind of cleaning – of the home, of the spirit,… because winter is the time to reflect, let go of the old that serves us no more and make space for new that the spring will bring. I am not saying we should all worship old gods (or any gods for that matter – to each his own I say:) but I do think there is some wisdom in some of the traditions – and we could take what works and leave the rest.
Winer spiral from greenery is an old tradition worth bringing back to life:)
Maybe all you take is just to rest a bit and not do anything – no scrolling on the phone, no small talk – just listen to some music or sit in silence in your home or go for a walk with no particular goal… We don’t always have to be great and productive. After a period like that, the work often just flows out. By the way, I am writing this for myself just as much as I am writing for you;).
Many people make new year’s resolutions. I will write more about the art of setting goals in the future but let’s start at the beginning. We often plan the future without looking at the past – but brushing it away robs us of valuable (although often painful) lessons that it could teach us… And leaves us more inclined to make the same mistakes;) So it is worth while to look back, sort through the good, the bad and the ugly and try to learn. What should we do more of? What could we do without? What could we change… and than we plan for the future.
Reflections: What worked, what made you happy, what didn’t?
Because I know this kind of lecturing doesn’t get us far I will try to lead by example. This is pretty new to me, to be honest. When I was younger, I always had very clear goals and I knew the path I have to walk to get there – at least roughly (the how is sometimes a bit harder but at least there was a clear path – although thorny;). But so far, everything was pretty standard – until I decided that I really need more art in my life than a hobby provides (because you don’t have that much time for a hobby with 3 kids;).
It used to be easy – the path was clear; but now I have to find my own:)
So I decided to try my solo path – and this time, nothing is set, there is no clear road ahead, there are million paths that people have taken, one has worked for someone, but not for another and vice versa and it’s pretty impossible to know which one will work for you, in these circumstances, at this time… because that has never been tried before. There is no clear “do this and you will get there”.
I love the holiday art journaling and I want do more of it next year.
So – what have I done in the past year, what has worked, what didn’t? I tried to build an online presence through different means – because I need to get to people if I want to share my message – and I certainly hope I have something valuable to contribute (sometimes I feel I have nothing, other times I am enthusiastic – but I think that’s the curse of all creatives…)
blog: I wrote and published 217 posts so far in the last year – which is more than I anticipated, to be honest. So the writing is not a problem, but the blog layout is – I think it is hard to find other things people would like to read and it should be designed differently. So I need to change that. Do you have any ideas, what would you like me to change, improve? Any theme you’d like to read more on? Do you like the images, the themes, the style or is it too… whatever? I am reflecting so I will definitely listen:).
YouTube: I have posted 57 videos (one was in 2020), i posted once a week regularly which was my goal. That schedule works but I would like to add some shorts because they seem fun and could help grow my channel. Again – any comment or insight would be very welcome:) What did you like, what you didn’t care for, what you’d rather do without? It could be a theme, a project, a style of editing, my silly jokes,…
Skillshare: I like SS because they have tones of classes so I released a class of my own and I hoped I would make at least two this year – so I am behind and the results are pretty low as well. I do crave more communication with students – I would like to help people when they have a question and that platform was a bit rigid – they are making changes so I will try again because I feel it has potential – I just don’t know if I will be able to reach it. If you would like to take a look at my class, you can find it here. And if you don’t have a Skillshare account, you can get 1 month free with the link provided. Try it out for one month and then you can always cancel if it doesn’t appeal to you.
Instagram: I am not a fan of it and neither is it my fan… I feel like I have put way too much energy into it for the return I got. I have grown my account quite a bit but I really don’t enjoy posting every day and the scheduler they have is not working so many times that it is really frustrating. So I am not sure if I will keep it up. But it is true that I got work through it in the past – not many times, though…
Facebook: I haven’t posted there much because I never liked it but I think I should bite that bitter apple and just deal with it – because I don’t know where the forums are (they seem to vanish) and because the blogging is not a viable way of finding people in 2020+… Again – that was one way of finding work…
Discord: is the platform I found this year and it’s great for learning – because you can find people to study with. It is terribly confusing for me because I am not used to those myriad of tabs and # and everything but slowly I am getting around to it. I want to use it more because I could really use accountability partner for sure;).
Art journaling: I love it and it challenges me just the right amount – I should definitely do more of that.
Art therapy: is something that I want to get more into because I feel that could help a lot of people. Would you be interested in that?
What are your major bullet points from last year? And what do you think about my own? I feel like I should do a review a bit more often:).
minutes read The 9th of December was Christmas card day. I guess it makes sense because that used to be enough time to send them to be delivered on time. In the last few years the post is much more swamped with all the delivery services, though, so act accordingly, especially if you ship internationally. But in our country, this is more than enough time – and some cards are hand-delivered:).
I don’t want to mislead you into thinking that I have this holiday game under control because I don’t! I always plan how we’ll make cards as a family together but as with so many plans – that has happened a couple of times since the kids were born. And I didn’t make cards before that either (unless you count the ones in art class in primary school;). I make cards when my kids go somewhere since that became a tradition that I can’t get rid of:D but that’s about it. I sometimes make them for birthdays or a sympathy card here and there but I am in no way, shape, or form a big card-maker. So I’m not trying to sell you this image of a perfect;).
I always make cards for my kids when they sleep somewhere else (with school etc).
But, surprisingly, nevertheless, I always liked making cards – because they usually make people happy or at least less alone (in the case of sympathy cards – I don’t delude myself that a sympathy card makes anyone happy but at least they know somebody thinks about them and wants to help). But in general, cards make people happy. Especially handmade cards. They don’t need to be especially aesthetically pleasing to hit the mark – when they are made by grandkids or somebody special for example;).
I rarely make cards otherwise but it’s nice to coordinate gifts and cards:). And handmade gifts are great because they can be personalized – i.e. the same motive on big sister’s T-shirt as on baby’s onesie:)
If you are not a cute 4-year-old, though, you might want to ramp up your game with some little cheats. Do you want some ideas on how to do that? – stamps – they are already designed to be cute, and festive,… so you don’t have to draw well to – pattern papers – the colors are coordinated and usually, in a set, there are also some papers with images you can cut out and use as embellishments – designer’s sets – these are practically foolproof – if you buy papers, images, stamps or die cuts from a series and combine them you usually can’t go wrong. I never used them but I’ve seen people who can’t do much on their own produce beautiful designs with these sets – photographs – if you have young kids or babies, they are always cute and so are many pets – but even a nice picture of a winter forest could be a nice and unique card – copy – the best way to learn is to copy the masters as they say – find a card you like and try to copy the technique, the layout, the feel,… you don’t have to have the exact same supplies, you can change the focal image, you can add something, and leave another thing out of the picture (i.e. card;)
Here is the promised tutorial on how to make the little felt decorations for your Christmas socks. You only need some felt scraps, office scissors and PVA glue – very simple to make and they bring so much joy!
I hope you enjoy it as much as we love this little idea and if you found something interesting or have any feedback, let me know in the comments. I’d like to get better and the quickest way is through feedback:).
As I’ve promised I’ve got another lovely tradition for you – handmade personalized ornaments for Christmas socks! We started this tradition when my kids were babies and they all still love it – although they are teens now and teens are supposed to hate everything, especially their parents and their stupid traditions :D.
Let’s take Christmas socks on another level – its pretty much free but means so much to kids!
So what’s it all about? As it is accustom here, we hang our socks for St. Nicolaus to fill them – in USA it’s usually Santa who does that but in Europe, at least in the middle part, it’s St. Nicolaus who fills the sock – and as you know, we have 3 good men who bring gifts in December.
In Europe, St. Nicolaus fills the socks but whoever does it, you can still decorate them;)
But we took this tradition further – every year I make every member of the family a little ornament of something that marked their year. Everybody choses their “logo of the year” themselves and I just make it. I usually cut it from felt and glue it on the cuff of the sock but sometimes the chosen ideas can be represented in a bit more creative ways – like the hula-hoop or juggling sticks, a fish net or a book. However you do the ornament is up to you but it is a very nice tradition to start and we all fondly look at ours every year and debate what we’ll chose for this year.
It’s always fun to look back at the things that marked our past years – some even decade ago!
So if you want to make it yourself, here’s what you’ll need:
A piece of felt: if can be synthetic or natural wool felt which is much nicer to work with but it is sometimes hard to find and more expensive so I save it for projects that kids will use and for this I used synthetic felt scraps because you only need a very small amount for these ornaments.
Scissors and PVA glue.
Something to draw your designs – it could be a pencil, white pencil or washable pen. *Also a scrap piece of paper and pencil to draw your sketches on if you need it.
Optional: punches – I used hole punches for eyes
Optional: permanent alcohol markers to draw the eyes, fins and other small details. You could also paint the felt but in my experience synthetic felt doesn’t take paint that well so you might want to try on a piece of scrap first.
This is my eldest’s sock – and there’s her whole life on there:) So fun to look back!
Tomorrow, you get a video tutorial so you’ll see how I made ours – it’s pretty easy and fun! And you’ll get to see what we’ve chosen this year:) By the way: my kids have already informed me that I will have to do that for them when they will be grown ups – and not just that! They intend to carry out that tradition and if they really intend to have so many kids as they plan, I am looking to doing 17 ornaments a year (for us and including their partners and all potential kids;). As you can tell, they really love it, even alpha male does:).
St. Nicolaus is the original gift bearer from Europe that is still celebrated here and he also has a procession on the eve before his name day. In some Christian homes here, he’s still the only one who brings gifts – people used to celebrate Christmas differently here – it was just a religious holiday, nothing commercial about it, no gifts, just mass, and nativity, etc. Of course, with capitalism, so came Santa and Christmas got a new meaning, imported from across the ocean.
St. Nicolaus’ procession – he has two kinds of companions: angels and devils, called Krampus in Austria or “parkelj” here.
But because we don’t want to get rid of the good stuff, including the good generous man, St. Nicolaus (and Grandpa Frost) still stayed – he traditionally brings gifts in socks or shoesthat the family puts out the eve before (on the 5th). Good kids get presents and bad kids used to get a stick (or in some countries coal) – but that hasn’t happened here for a long time – now all the kids are good and we know that it’s usually the parents who need to change – just ask the Nannys;). This is also the original tradition that led to Santa’s coal, by the way.
St. Nicolaus socks filled with baked goods, oranges and gifts.
Traditional gifts include citruses, dried fruits and nuts, gloves or socks, and a sweet dough treat shaped like the devilish creature (St. Nicolaus’ companion), called Parkelj or Krampus in Austria (you can see our version in the picture below). Kids get this treat at school for snacks and every bakery and shop sells them at this time (but we prefer homemade;).
St. Nicolaus’ socks in action.
We have another tradition that I have found somewhere on the web, it could be on Martha Stewart, (not sure anymore since it was literally 1,5 decades ago :D) about the ornaments on the socks, but more on that on Thursday:)
Every year they are baked from a different recipe and always a nice breakfast or snack:).
You might have seen the video where I talk about the holiday traditions and show you the ones we have but since there are a number of them in the video I thought, you might want a condensed list to choose from. So I split them into a few categories.
Watching holiday decorations was fun even during the isolation days but it’s even better with friends!
First are the recurring traditions that expand over multiple subsequent days – either the whole month, until Christmas, or at least for a few days or a week: – advent calendar: filled with little chocolates and small toys or more imaginative gifts like science experiments or holiday tasks – watch the video if you want some ideas;) – artsy advent calendar – this is a spin on a normal advent calendar, where you draw or paint a picture every day for the whole holiday month – my spin on this idea was to illustrate every day (what we did that day) with a small picture in a bubble – there were 31 bubbles on an A3 sheet of paper where the whole December is now illustrated – elf on the shelf – many of you already know it – basically, it is an elf who hides throughout December and sometimes does different kinds of mischief (it doesn’t have to be mischievous but it can be fun) – and you can use any kind of elf or doll for that – it doesn’t have to be that creepy one;) – Christmas countdowns – there are many versions, from very religios ones where Mary and Joseph move one step at a time to reach the barn or golden star that travels down to completely secular ones with socks, hats, or other holiday symbols involved… – advent wreath – in German-speaking countries it is a tradition to make a wreath on the Saturday before the first advent Sunday and light one more candle each advent Sunday (that is why sometimes candles are different in length from the get-go); but people also make wreath for the doors or just as a decoration – Nativity – traditionally they were set up on Christmas eve but nowadays usually they are on display the whole month – winter or holiday-themed nature corner– either use wintery colors, winter materials, or winter gnomes, and your corner will feel wintery – if you want a holiday theme, use ornaments and or gift bearer’s dolls – Tio de Nadal – a rather silly-sounding (to those who haven’t grown up with it) tradition from Spain, well worth looking into:) Check my last year’s post about it to learn more – lights, city decorations – almost everyone I know goes to see the holiday decorations in our city – it is a big deal here and we have real artists working on this – we had one in charge every year that came up with very unique decorations – unfortunately he died but his decorations were always thought-provoking and usually very aesthetically pleasing – mistletoeto kiss underneath – holiday fairs – craft fairs, outdoor fairs, even farmer’s market usually turns into one… every city has some! – some processions(some are just one eve, others happen over a number of days) – winter festivals: we have a festival called Ana Mraz, which means Anna Cold which is one of four festivals (one each season) where street artists from near and far perform every day from Christmas to New Year – live Nativity plays, or life-sized Nativity if there are any in your area – they are usually set outside for the whole of December and the live plays are usually carried out a number of days
Winter nature corner is one way to honor the season and can be used post-holiday as well.
Traditions that happen once a year: – watching the switching on the lights in the city for the first time – usually at the beginning of December or end of November – writing a wish list to grandpa Frost, Santa, or another gift bearer – branches in the water on the 4th (St. Barbara for Catholics) – Christmas socks or St. Nicolaus socks in middle Europe – Noche de las Velitas – a tradition from Spain of lighting candles and lanterns – sowing Christmas wheat andSt. Lucia’s day – card making: a holiday classic is to make cards together and send them to friends and family; here are some a bit more unique wishes if you’d like to be more original in your cards;) – decorating the Christmas tree – sometimes picking and buying the tree is a tradition of its own; we usually get the tree from grandma and grandpa who have a piece of land in the middle of the woods but I know many families who have a tradition of going to the farmer’s market and picking up the tree together – advent spiral – a very gentle tradition that mesmerizes small kids – gift bearers: St. Nicolaus, Santa, Baba Natale, Baby Jesus, Grandpa Frost, Beltana, the Three Kings (on the 6th of January), whoever visits your household – speaking of gifts, you could also decorate your gifts nicely
Every holiday has special foods and sometimes something you try once becomes a tradition by the next year because every just loves it so much! Like this edible Christmas tree:)
Another very important aspect of holidays is, of course, the food. It can be given as a gift (especially great for people “who have everything” or that you don’t know well – cookies are usually welcomed even by people who don’t eat them because we all want to have some for guests that are rolling in during this time of year more than usually – so here are some ideas: – cookies – gingerbread house –hot drinkslike hot chocolate, fruit-infused tea, or mulled wine – Yule’s log for the Winter Solstice – new year’s cake or another new year’s traditional food you have; ours is chocolate cake and we don’t intend to change it any time soon;) * I’ll go over outdoor winter activities in another post because this one is long enough as it is;).
Very Arty Fairy 