Christmas Eve and all is well

A snowy midnight hottub, five hours of morning snow play followed by another deep nap is all deeply restorative. Today the neighbours and us built a 7-foot-high archway over the luge course, all from snow (no cheating with wood supports like someone unmentionable suggested). No hurries, no agenda, just play and creativity. The kids did what kids do best - laugh, explore, invent, and try without boundaries. It was them who suggested dragging the 100-lb balls with the sled. It was them who figured out a system of steps to get the upper snowballs in place. What better learning environment could we have created - architecture, physics, gross motor development, Greek and Roman history, weather, melting/freezing, teamwork.

Sarah and the kids are right now whipping up some Christmas Eve dessert surprise, then we'll
- finish sewing new stockings (can't find the old ones after the move),
- open one present each (a tradition that Sarah and i started during our first Christmas together in Zambia 10 years ago - I gave her feather pillows to replace the hard foam beasts I'd used for 5 bachelor years in Africa),
- make Sarah's family traditional "monkey bread" - gooey bread balls soaked in butter, sugar and cinnamon
- open the last advent calendar treasures, and read a few bedtime Christmas stories.
- present creation (toolboxes for the boys) and wrapping (with African cloth, no disposable paper and tape allowed), and maybe a letter from Santa

Growing up, Christmas Eve was my favourite day of the year. A raucous party with the Swedish cousins, huge smorgassboard, presents galore, out-of-tune carols, laughter, family. I will at some point tonight feel a bit sad at missing that ongoing (albeit smaller and more sober) tradition, but these quiet new traditions with my own family are equally rich and beautiful. And the bigger community are fully a part of this season - last weekend's Vancouver visits, the Boxing Day open house, snowplay with the neighbours, 2-day beachside cabin with my mom and brother, New Years visit from close family friends. Balance of extended family and nuclear family, balance of fun and sacred, balance of community and family. From such an off-balance day as yesterday, this is as refreshing as the snowball-size snow showers from the trees shaking their limbs.

Oh oh, i've been beckoned. have a marvelous Christmas friends.

Did I Sell Out to Christmas Consumerism?

A few hours I ago I posted a lamentation about my 3-hour odyssey into Christmas shopping craziness. I want to explore a bit more my discomfort and self-judgment.

It's not that I wasted a bunch of money, nor spent it against our ethics. The purchases were mostly groceries to welcome and treat our new friends at the Boxing Day party we're hosting for however many of the 31 invited families are able to swing by for that home-made eggnog. I shopped at our wonderful locally-owned Community Farm Store, bought organic and local as much as possible, and feel satisfied that it will all lead to genuine merriment for our children and friends.

What bothers me, in addition to the stress of holiday crowds and lost snowplay time, is the compulsion I felt to go shopping. That feeling that I just had to go out and buy things to make this Christmas special. We're trying to become people who are freed from that cycle of buying happiness, and there I was in the midst of the throng of North Americans all doing and feeling the same thing. The fact that I made ethical purchases does not take away the inner drive that took me away from my family and launched me into aisle one with a hungry shopping cart.

I first truly discovered this inner drive while living in a remoter-than-Mars fishing village in Tanzania. Whenever something happened - birthday, good work report, a particularly good day - I wanted to celebrate by spending money. It was so poignant because I was living in a village where that simply wasn't possible. There were no treats to be had a the market - no bakeries or imported goodies or new clothes.

Now 15 years later I still felt the need to rush out the day before Christmas Eve buy two more presents for my children (bringing the grand total to 3, plus the tool boxes I'll be building for them tomorrow - still not an excess!) and some more treats for us and our friends. How do we truly exorcise this market demon?

Maybe I should just make friends with this demon, or assert a mastery over its energy. Accept that consumption is necessary, and feel good about having made healthy and ethical choices focused on bringing Joy to others, making our first Christmas in our new home a special, memorable time. Maybe I should just go eat one of those stocking-stuffer fair-trade chocolate balls and let Bowie and Bing sing to me, "May your days be merry and bright, and may all your Christmases be white."

Christmas tunes and drifted banks

In follow-up to that duets article, I published two more seasonal song lists and another Christmas article:

• From Bing to Bowie - top renditions of classic Christmas songs
  
• Christmas songs: the fun, the strange and the not-so-classic
• Create Traditions that make holiday memories

Our holidays have certainly been painted a dazzling white this year. The snows didn't stop us from a beautiful 4-day Vancouver jaunt to celebrate Chanukah and Christmas a bit early with dear friends and family, then returned last night to park at the bottom of our driveway and trudge through knee-deep unbroken snow with two sleeping babes in arms. Tucked them in then joined a warm and yummy celebration with our neighbours then a cold starry hottub, feeling fully blessed by our surroundings and community and serenity of space and mind.

The fir tree branches are stooped right to the ground with the weight of the snow. It's deep enough that this morning we dug a luge course down the driveway and into the wooded side lot, and just played and played all morning.

The drifted bank (from Jingle Bells -"we fell into a drifted bank and then we got upsot) came when i unwisely brushed off the car and headed into town to stock up on supplies and stocking-stuffers. All sense of Christmas joy and anticipation and that above-mentioned serenity were snuffed out halfway down aisle one, when i'd already been bumped and apologized to more than in the whole previous year. $300 later i felt exhausted and broke and like i'd sold out to the consumptive Christmas i've been ranting against. Did we really need those homemade eggnog supplies and fair-trade chocolate stocking stuffers to enjoy the next few days?

I should have been home playing with the kids, listening to some of those top ten Christmas songs (especially the David Bowie and Bing Crosby duet) and letting Santa bring homemade cookies and hand-carved play figures this year.

Unlikely Duets and Gleanings

I found myself reminiscing and humming "To All The Girls I've Loved Before," and ended up publishing a list of 10 duets by unusual pairings. When you've got a few minutes to click on some fun U-Tube links, check it out.

Meanwhile, the snow continues to fall - 'twill be a beautiful walk back to pick up the boys today. I stopped on the way home this morning to pick pretty much the last of the frozen crabapples, to make juice for dinner with friends tonight, but it's unlikely I'll coax the boys into a repeat of that frozen-finger-fest. To make up for a lost farming season (due to the move), it's been a marvelous gleaning season:

• roadside blackberries every day with Zekiah during the half-hour wait for Galen to finish school
• apples from the schoolyard --> jam, syrup, apple butter, pies, frozen, juice...
• crabapples from the same schoolyard --> jam, syrup, juice, muffins, pancakes...
• mulberries and figs from a friend's overflowing farm
  

Farming 101

Even as I continue to relish this fresh crop of snow, it's apparently only 3 months or so until the real work of farming begins. So i made a list of things we need to learn by then, to be able to plan and operate our farm. Ultimate goal is to never buy a zuchini again. More specifically, to grow and preserve almost all our own fruits and veggies for year-round consumption, plus have one or a few crops or products for income generation.

So, in case any of you worry that I'll become lazy or brain-dead in this new leisurely farm life, here's the list so far. Any suggestions about things to add, resources, or knowledge you may have is very very welcome:

Ag Tax exemption – rules, application procedure and timing
Crop rotation, cover crops
Cowichan Land Trust
Fermentation
Forest management, firewood types
Greenhouse – rebuild, maintain, heat
Hunting (deer, rabbits, quail) – how, licensing, processing
Organic rules, certification - http://www.certifiedorganic.bc.ca/aboutorganic/organicwhat.htm
Pruning
Root cellar – how, when, what…
Seed saving , sources
Seedlings, transplanting
Volunteers – WOOFers, etc

Fruit trees: plant, harvest, prune, preserve, sources
Apples, crabapple, asian pear… , Pear, Plum , Quince, ...

Berries: Blackberries, Blueberries, Grapes, Mulberry , Oregon grape , Raspberries, Rosehips, Salal, Saskatoon berries, Strawberries

Crops: Types, market, prices, soil type and prep, care (weeding, fertilize, pest control), timing, preservation, intercropping, costs:
Asparagus, Beans, Beets , Broccoli, Brussel sprouts, Cabbage , Carrots , Cauliflower, Corn , Garlic, Kale, lettuce, greens , Oats, quinoa, barley… to replace hay , Onions , Peas , Peppers , Potatoes, Pumpkins, Sarsaparilla , Spinach, Squash, zucchini, Tomato , Turnips, rutabaga

Other food growing stuff: Hay – care, who to harvest, Hazelnuts , Maple syrup, Mushrooms

Animals: Alpaca , Bees , Chickens – types, shelter, care, where to buy, breeding, meat processing; Cow, Goats, Rabbits , Sheep

Questions to ask people: Marketability of crops, etc; Resources (groups, lectures, books, websites); People to ask, farms to visit…

Growing Snow

Friday afternoon our boys were dancing around the thrift store parking lot in the first brief snow flurry of the season. Saturday night they peeked out the church door and shouted back to the entire Cowichan Folk Music Guild that it was snowing - so much for their participation in the rest of the annual potluck and carol sing-along. Our walk home in the soft glow of falling snow was so magical that we extended it to a walk around our back fields and forest trails.

This morning they miraculously kept to their promise of staying in bed until 7, but then we were outside to build the first snowman and walk the property to find deer and other animal tracks. Quick waffle breakfast then walked back down to try to attend our first service at this reportedly progressive Anglican church, but found ourselves alone so we walked along the enchanted river then back for 2 hours of non-stop sledding down our steep driveway (and over the banks of the sides) with the 3 neighbour kids.

Lunch, nap, more sledding, and Christmas tree decorations (listening to Mahalia Jackson, of course) completed the idyllic weekend that also included a long lounging Texas breakfast with dear friends, overlooking the snowcapped Tzouhalem Mountain from our kitchen table. My favourite day of the year in Vancouver was the first morning of snow on the North Shore mountains, which always was somehow a beautiful sunny day, and that tradition continues strong here in our new home.

Is there anything our boys could want more than snow, a complete weekend with us and friends, a night of music and extensive dessert potluck, and Christmas decorating? They glowed, danced, giggled, shone in all their 5 and 7-year-old glory, as kids should. Ah that every weekend could be so pure as this new snow.

Zekiah's First Day of Kindergarten

Whoops, I posted about Galen's first day in grade one, but forgot this piece about Zekiah's first day in Kindergarten. I did adapt this for a published article called "Love is in Fashion", but this original is still worth sharing, methinks...

zekiah's kindergarten teacher had a parents night to explain their routines and ways, all equally magical, starting from the first half hour of each day that will be outdoor playtime, followed by a walk to the garden and the same patch of forest each and every day so they can experience the subtle changes and growth and birth and death of nature, rain or shine. i felt like a stronger and more supported parent just by being in the group and in teacher Ruth's presence - i can't wait to see how our already-beautiful child zekiah will further blossom in the next 2 years with her.

we each brought something from nature that represents our child. i brought the wind, describing how zekiah is this energized and energizing burst of energy and enthusiasm at every thing and every one in his life, inspiring and lifting and refreshing all around him, filling up a room or a yard or a car with his exhuberence, then sometimes unexpectedly dying down to an angelic tickling whisper licking around our ears and snuggling in close. sarah described him as the sun, radiant and warm and life-giving. each parent described their cricket, their birds nest, their grass, their dead-bug collection... with equal adoration and admiration and respect. we all walked out feeling so blessed to have this amazing group of kids to meet this week and be part of us for our life here, and to have been drawn into such an open and deep opportunity to display our love and wonder for our children. the first of so many gifts we will experience at Sunrise Waldorf.

even if this was the one and only reason for moving here, it would be enough. we are full, we are confident in the present and the future, and believing and trusting and letting go in ways we never fully could before. the time is now