Please Remember...

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There have been so many wonderful blog posts leading up to this first day of Advent. My head fairly spins with good ideas. But there is a poignancy to this season that trumps the busy-ness for me.

Last year, at this time, my friend Nicole was hungrily buying a lifetime supply of Christmas ornaments--literally.  She wrapped and labelled one for each of her three children to be opened every Christmas of their childhoods.

In March of last year, our friend Missey died in childbirth. 

Nicole died in July.

Lorrie died Thanksgiving Day.

Last Christmas was the last Christmas for all three of those ladies.  What if this is the last year we have to prepare for the babe in the manger?  What if this is the last year to make memories? What lessons do we really, really want to teach as if they were the last chance to shape a mind and a soul?

Missey had no idea she was going to die.  But this is how she spent last December:  A December Retreat at Home. Seems like time well spent now, doesn't it?

There will always be good things to do, in every season.  Missey and Lorrie and, especially, Nicole have taught me this year to choose the best, even if I have to sacrifice the good.

Christmas Meme

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1. Hot Chocolate or apple cider?

Apple cider with mulling spices.  I don't do dairy while nursing or pregnant.

2. Turkey or Ham?

Neither.  Beef tenderloin on the grill.

3. Do you get a fake or real-you-cut-it-yourself Christmas tree?

Fake.  I have a house full of asthmatic children and it seems like we spend every Advent hooked up to the nebulizer.

4. Decorations on the outside of your house?

We'll have a wreath on the front door and wreaths on the windows.  We had icicle lights on our old house, but they don't really work here.  Christian has suggested garland and lights on the pillars, so we might try that this year.

5. Snowball fights or sleddin'?

I'm a huge fan of sledding but we live on a former farm.  Nothing but flatness everywhere. I miss the hills of our old neighborhood.  I've done my fair share of referring snowball fights though (just can't seem to get my husband to behave;-).

6. Do you enjoy going downtown shopping?

No.  Shopping makes me nuts.  Every ADD gene in my body boings out of control. I get totally overwhelmed and have to come home and read Raising Your Spirited Child just to calm myself, never mind any spirited children I was foolish enough to take with me!

7. Favorite Christmas song?

Breath of Heaven sung by Amy Grant. 

8. How do you feel about Christmas movies?

I have watched It's a Wonderful Life every year since it was a mandatory study break in college.  I love it. And I like The Family Man, too. Other than that, the TV is busy with late football season and the beginning of the college basketball season.

9. When is it too early to start listening to Christmas music?

One year, I played the song referred to in question #7 incessantly in April.  It became a prayer for my pregnancy with Nicholas, my Christmas miracle (he was unexpected as many miracles are).  The song played all the way to the hospital and echoed in my head as snow fell outside the Birthing Inn.  Maternity wards at Christmas time are really beautiful places!

10. Stockings before or after presents?

Stockings on St. Nicholas day.

11. Carolers, do you or do you not watch and listen to them?

Love them!

12. Go to someone else's house or they come to you?

We do Christmas dinner at my house, some years as many as three times, depending on relatives and schedules.

13. Do you read the Christmas Story? If so when?

Yes, all throughout the season.

14. What do you do after presents and dinner?

The children draw names to buy presents for each other.  We open those before midnight Mass.  Then, they get a present from us Christmas morning, after which we have breakfast. After dinner, they play with cousins and I clean the kitchen.  That doesn't sound like fun for mom, but by the time we get to "after dinner" I'm ready for the solitude a pile of dishes affords me.

15. What is your favorite holiday smell?

My mother's pumpkin bread.  I can't eat wheat any more and it's the pumpkin bread I miss the most, more for the smell than the treat itself. Spiced apple cider is a happy second place.

16. Ice skating or walking around the mall?

I love to ice skate.  The mall, not so much.

17. Do you open a present or presents on Christmas Eve, or wait until Christmas day?

We do both.

18. Favorite Christmas memory?

We brought Nicholas home on Christmas Eve.  They handed him to me in a stocking.  Michael was twelve and had not yet hit a teenage growth spurt.  I remember wanting to stop time.  Everything was perfect.  Of course, if time had stopped, Mary Beth would still be the only girl and we wouldn't know Katie or Karoline.  God always has a better idea than we do, doesn't He?  And we sure can't out-give Him.

19. Favorite Part about winter?

I love a fire on a snow day.  I love to walk outside at night after it has snowed.  I love flannel sheets. I love my Christmas dishes.  I love it that my birthday is right after Christmas and my mother can't resist a sale.

20. Ever been kissed under mistletoe?

Yep, and I married him!

Herbal Medicine Nature Study

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We've always dabbled with herbal medicine:  a tin of Baby Balm here, a tincture of echinacea there, some Sambucol every November, chamomile at bedtime.  But I've never stopped to take the time for a comprehensive, systematic study of herbs that heal. The herb books were Mom's reading and usually it was reading done under the time constraints of some acute condition. Still, alternative medicine, and particularly herbal healing, is a burning interest of mine--one I want to pursue.

As the days grow shorter and darker this year and as the viruses threaten our home, I've decided that the perfect late fall and winter nature study is one that takes botany and brings it home for our health. And, in the true spirit of "getting things done," I am going to share our plans here for Dawn's late autumn field day, while trying to compensate for the fact that I missed her Loveliness of Homemade Fair.

Our booklist for this rabbit trail is fairly short.  For the children, I purchased a Kid's Herb Book for Children of All Ages.

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This is a great book!  I read it through one evening during a nursing marathon and I learned so much.  The author, a dedicated practicing herbalist, familiarizes with sixteen medicinal herbs. It's a children's book, but her respect for the intellect of children is readily apparent.  The information in this book is not dumbed down.  interspered with the science, there are fictional stories about natural life but even those are well done and my children enjoy them. For each herb, we will learn a new "technique." For instance, comfrey is the knitbone herb.  We learned, at long last, how to make an herbal healing salve. I used this kit from learningherbs.com to jumpstart me.

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We all enjoyed turning a small crock of simmering herbs

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into little tins and pots of healing salve to give as gifts and to tuck into diaper bags and soccer backpacks.

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Each child made a notebook page for comfrey which will be added to his or her own personal herbal reference book. I'll scan at least one child's entry each week and post it at Blossoms and Bees so we have an online herbal guide as well. This might be the first (and only) notebook that everyone from 4-18 completes.  Katie is too little to make her plants look much like plants and I do want her to have a keepsake so I am using coloring pages from Dover's Medicinal Plants Coloring Book. I got two of these, because I have a little guy who tends to freeze if he can't do something perfectly (where'd he get that trait?) and the coloring pages will get him over the drawing hump.

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I'm making notes as we do this over the winter so that when the growing season comes again, our herb garden can reflect what we learned.  Hopefully, I can cut down on shipments like these from Mountain Rose Herbs.

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Truth be told, much of that is my attempt to make my own postpartum-and-beyond tea.  My cuppa now has equal parts Raspberry leaf, Nettle, Lady's Mantle, and Lemon Balm with some Lavender and some Cinnamon chips. Still debating whether or not to add Red Clover...

We will follow the Kids' Herb Book through the rest of the fall and into the winter, learning one a herb a week and making things like elderberry syrup, ginger ale, and slippery elm lozenges.

Before Christmas, I plan to make milk and honey herbal soap and some soy candles scented with essential oil.  So far, we haven't a had huge success with honey soaps but we did make nice soap out of a simple combination of melt and pour glycerin, a little beeswax, some lavender from our garden and some lavender essential oil.

After reading about paraffin candles (HT:As Cozy as Spring), I decided there would be no more Yankee Candles here. Did you know:

"the EPA has confirmed that those candles, and the smoke and soot they give off, contain several dangerous chemicals in significant quantities. These chemicals include known or probable carcinogens, neurotoxins and reproductive toxins.

The American Lung Association also warns that burning paraffin candles can emit toxins (in measurable amounts) into your home’s air."

Instead, we are making soy candles and scenting them with natural fragrance oil.  We made our first batch last week and I'm very pleased with the result.  I used a starter kit to get us going, but now we're ready to tinker with combination scents and try some longer burning, larger candles.

Following the natural theme, we are also making beeswax angel ornaments.  I think that this combination of natural, yet lovely, items makes a pretty gift package.

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In an effort to keep everything from being dried and bound in a book, we're going to grow some herbs indoors as well. This way, the children can gain an intimate knowledge of the plants and further appreciate what a gift they are to us. With this kit, we'll even bag our own tea!

So, there you have it:  lots of little goodies for thoughtful (and natural) gift baskets, the beginnings of an herbal medicine chest, some notebook pages, an ongoing nature study, and quite an education for Mom!