Children often grow out of their clothes before they wear them out. After Christmas and into the New Year is a great time to look for winter clothes. A lot of children will have new clothes for the holidays, so families will probably be looking to get rid of old clothes. Combined with the New…Read the full article.

Happy Anniversary to me! A short lifetime ago, I was married in the village where I am now spending the holidays with my in-laws. My husband and I have blocked out the day to spend together, turning down all other offers of activities. Our children are spending the day with cousins, and we are off…Read the full article.

Holiday time is a time to consider community traditions as well as family traditions. My family is staying with in-laws in rural Suffolk, England, so we’ve been going to all of the local celebrations. Thursday, we went to a performance of local Molly Dancers. This is a reclaimed local tradition that takes place between harvest…Read the full article.

The holiday tradition of spiced cider or mulled wine stretches from Halloween to Twelfth Night through all of the holidays in between. Wassail is most usually associated with Christmas now, but it wasn’t always so. Wassail is both the drink and the act of going house to house asking for the drink. “Waes Hail!” is…Read the full article.

A seasonal table or nature table serves as an indoor reminder of the changes of the seasons. Many families and Waldorf schools add to the table as they find natural treasures like rocks, shells, twigs, small squashes at harvest time, new leaves in spring, and anything else that strikes the fancy of adults or children…Read the full article.

Whether you are bringing indoors evergreen boughs, a whole tree, or just a smaller reminder of the turning of the seasons, decorating with nature helps your child to connect with nature and the cycle of life, death, and new life. This year, I adapted a velvet acorns project I found in a surprise issue of…Read the full article.

Would you like to avoid that embarrassing holiday garbage can? You know the one, full to the brim and beyond with boxes and paper from a few holiday gifts. Reusable gift wrap will save you the embarrassment, if that’s what motivates you. If you need more positive motivation, think of the good example and family…Read the full article.

Homemade holiday gifts not only save money, but they help our children think of the personal act of giving rather than an abstract payment of money for stuff. If you are still looking for gifts your children can make, these are a few ideas my children have tried over the years. Holiday soap. Grate a…Read the full article.

Do you get too busy to really know how you feel? Do you give yourself a moment to check in and ask whether your busy-ness is helping you to be a happier, healthier person? Several of my friends are so busy that they aren’t making space for that downtime check-in, and I worry about them.…Read the full article.

How are you doing? How is your quality of life? And, how is your government measuring your quality of life? Around the world, there are governments making efforts to measure the genuine wellbeing and happiness of their people when they find that GDP (Gross Domestic Product or the market value of the stuff produced) doesn’t…Read the full article.