Festive feelings – beautiful greenery
It’s that time of year, houses have been cleaned and cleaned again. Decorations are bought, food stored in the freezer, and cards and gifts prepared, written and wrapped. I make festive decorations with beautiful greenery. If I’m honest, it’s the music I look forward to the most. Playing music with close friends, and in church is definitely what brings me closest to the ‘spirit of the season’.
Collecting autumn leaves
But I do also love to bring in the decorations. I spend two or three months collecting foliage and beautiful greenery. In October and November I collect autumn leaves, orange, yellow, pink and red and steep them in glycerin solution for up to a week. Sycamore leaves, red oak, native oak and birch are my favourite. But I also enjoy various other acers, some spidery, some smaller, but with vibrant colours, and fern leaves.
Collecting evergreens
Then in December I collect the beautiful greenery, holly, cedar, spruce, fir, pine, mahonia and yew. They stay outside where the moisture won’t evaporated. The greenery keeps outside in the cold. After earlier December, once the birthdays have been and gone, and as term draws to an end I start to draw together the ingredients and start to make wreaths, garlands, swags and strings of leaves.
Children – leaves and crafts
I’d like to say that I consider the significance of the cedar, and holly to the Christmas story, but I just really enjoy the beauty of it all. Leaf shapes, conkers, acorns are so very beautiful, and make fantastic crafting material for the children. They learn to identify to leaves, as they engage with their colours and their shapes. The fir is easy to remember – it is so soft like fur. This year there were nearly no acorns or conkers in our crafts and creations – there were nearly none this year for some reason.
Mine and theirs
This year the boys decorated their tree with so many of their wonderful crafts – glittered preserved leaves and paper trains. I have recently been enjoying decorating the tree with as much of natural material as I can muster. Preserved leaves (bedazzled in glitter), pine cones (with gold leaf) and bees wax candles. In years past I would bake orange and citrus slices, and make baubles with them or strings with cranberries and apple slices. This year no such luck, as I have been floored with the flu, nor have I managed to paint the enormous sycamore keys I found by the river. But being ground to a halt as I have been this year has helped me to consider more deeply the process of clearing our houses and making space for the new year.
Relaxing foliage
The result of beautiful greenery really relaxes me – bringing outside in, and bathing mantels and doorways in beautiful greenery and golden beauty makes me appreciate the season, and I settle in for the festivities.
Make his paths straight
But I think there is something almost religious about the act of cleaning houses and preparing it for the festive season. “Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight”. We clear and organise, and make room in our lives. What for though? More opportunities for thoughtful gifts, continuing on our chosen trajectory for the new year ahead, or perhaps more stuff, or more clutter.
A new homeschooling term
I have removed all of the homeschooling materials to mark the end of term, and in the new year I’ll start about a new homeschooling year. I’ll consider our chosen trajectory, and establish an new home education routine. After long consideration and reading on what makes for good education and a good upbringing for our children, I have to implement these ideas and this knowledge into the practice of our everyday.
Goals
As well as homeschool, I like to look at my own goals, hopes, dreams, plans for the year ahead, and work together with my family as we establish our collected intensions. These can be surface goals, like pieces I hope to learn on the piano, or songs to write, or they can be much deeper, like addressing my own attitude on certain situations or even people, or some struggles that I identify that I need to master before it masters me. It may be the conviction to use less screen time at the end of the day, or to aim for more sleep. Or it may be a deeper internal struggle that threatens who I might have otherwise chosen to be, such as jealousy, or insecurity.
New life
This naturally formed footprint reminds me to take one step at a time. For this beautiful greenery to be homed everywhere in our living space, a clear out of space was required to let this new life in. For us to follow Jesus’ plans in our lives, we have to surrender all the busyness that clogs up our responses and keeps us from prioritising His humble, gentle way. We can start a new year with a quiet heart. Most likely it will become restless and busy, and all sorts of irks and pains will get in our way, but I think this time of clearing out, tidying up, and prioritising is vital to deter the accumulation of the clutter in our hearts.
https://thereisnoshouldbe.com/children-in-the-garden/
https://thereisnoshouldbe.com/throwing-trees-relief-in-nature/