How Do You Celebrate Special Events in Your Family
Creating family celebrations and festivals
View/download pdf Celebrations
Why family celebrations?
Sometimes our celebration can be a very uncomplicated ritual, repeated so oft that it becomes woven into the fabric of our lives. It may exist the manner we pull the curtains back in our child's room each twenty-four hour period and say good morning to the sunday, and "cheers for a bright new solar day". It may be the way, when putting a small child to bed, we low-cal a candle, and quietly say a approval, which surrounds them with love to keep them safe, and and then softly sing a lullaby before kissing them goodnight. It may exist the manner we prepare for a parent or child's homecoming subsequently a trip away, with a special card, a sign of welcome on the door, and a special meal where the story of their adventures can be told.
Or it may be a fiddling more than complicated, like a little festival welcoming the spring, with friends to join usa, a story to tell, some singing and a shared meal. Or a anniversary to bury a beloved cat which has died. Or a simple song and story for the lighting of the Advent candles. Or a candle lighting at Christmas for all those we love. A review of the year's events and blessings for the coming year in a special New Twelvemonth's Eve repast.
There are then many things in our lives to be acknowledged, valued and historic. How can we live with sensation and appreciation of the natural earth effectually usa? How can nosotros celebrate the richness of what the rhythms of nature bring in the seasons, in the twelvemonth?
How practice nosotros welcome each fresh new twenty-four hour period and the sunday with optimism? How do we complete each day with gratitude for what it brought us? How do nosotros prepare a child for the gift of proficient sleep? How tin can we bring a supportive predictable rhythm to the days of the week, in the seasons of the year, for children?
How practice we help make transitions more witting and consummate? How tin can we say adieu to things gracefully, with gratitude? How do we acknowledge a new start? How tin can we celebrate with more than consciousness the special moments in our lives? How do we welcome the people nosotros love?
How exercise nosotros make all this part of our lives? Nosotros can do all these things with pocket-size celebrations, developed with consciousness, appreciation, and acknowledgement.
What do our children learn from all this? That life is rich, meaningful and beautiful.
Some reminders about what is worth celebrating
- Every day special times: morning/sun rise, midday, evening/sunset, night
- Days of the week: Mon, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday
- Months of the yr: what happens, what grows
- Seasons of the year: Jump, Summer, Autumn, Winter
- Everyday special times: meal times, story time, sleep
- Yearly special times: birthdays, anniversaries, death days/remembering days, new year
- Transitions times/beginnings & endings: start twenty-four hours of schoolhouse, moving house, house blessings
- Journeys: goodbyes, welcomes
- Special religious festivals: Christmas/Easter/Christian festivals/Ramadan/Hannukkah/other religious festivals.
- Other festival traditions: Halloween, Valentine'south Mean solar day, Mother's Mean solar day, Father's Day, Chinese New year's day
- Other traditions in your family unit (e.thou. holidays in the aforementioned place each year)
Creating a celebration or festival
i. Clarify your aims.
What ideas are you trying to express in this commemoration? What values are yous trying to support within your family'due south belief system? For example: What exercise you believe about birth and decease, about ancestry and endings, about the values implicit in traditional festivals such as Christmas or Easter? What attitudes towards nature and the earth do you desire to develop in your children? What are the basic attitudes y'all want to encourage in everyday living and in other people— in how nosotros greet the twenty-four hour period, each other, our troubles and our blessings?
Consider how yous tin can create a satisfying commemoration of an event or festival experience which enriches y'all and your family unit in body, soul and spirit. Some celebrations volition of necessity exist unproblematic and short just others offer the opportunity to nourish yourselves in varied ways: festive foods, social activities, music, poetry, stories, plays, magic moments, beauty, flowers and creative activities. Thoughtful content tin can give a commemoration meaning and substance, can nourish us in endless ways and enrich family life immeasurably.
Note that the deepest meaning of the celebration is carried in the minds and hearts of the agile adults. Without this clarity and commitment, the celebration becomes merely an "activity", no uncertainty withal valuable in its ain way, but with less likelihood of becoming a more profound experience for all.
For whom? Who is the commemoration for? It is a richer feel if every person coming is involved in some mode and brings something for the festival – food, flowers, a song, a idea etc.
When and what time of twenty-four hours, for how long? Consider the limitations on concentration of the children. It is mostly improve to have a short well-formed formal festival followed by a looser organisation of social activities, eating, games etc.
two. Content of the commemoration
Content – this can be anything that can add to the meaning and enjoyment of your celebration: special thoughts to bring pregnant, blessings, stories, artistic items of music, poetry, prose, decorations, dress, food, games, activities, a celebration table.
three. Preparations for the celebration
Children love to look forward to a celebration and exist involved in its grooming. For example in making lanterns, candles, special nutrient, gifts, garlands, going on walks to collect natural things, or making decorations.
Songs and stories: Are there songs to larn or stories to be told in preparation?
four. The formal commemoration system
The 'content' of the festival needs to be organised into a balanced program. Consider the preparation for the commemoration, how information technology will begin, or be introduced, what will be its major focus and how volition information technology exist brought to a conclusion? Who volition lead into the beginning of the festival, and how? How can you lead from one activity to another, and how can yous gather information technology together at the finish? Who volition speak the simple thoughts that necktie it all together and brand its pregnant articulate?
The success of a formal celebration or festival is greatly enhanced by the thoughtful attention to particular in the mode it is put together. It is like directing a performance. Piffling things, like having the matches in the right place for lighting the candles, people knowing when they are to practise things, having musical instruments ready to play on cue etc., aid to continue the organization tight and then that the focus tin can stay on the content. Tight order also helps to keep the reverence and wonder in place. Disorganisation creates loose boundaries, where the special fourth dimension blurs into the ordinary.
The construction of a celebration
Here is one proposition for the structure of a celebration or festival. There are of class many means. Each celebration will be dissimilar.
The beginning sign.Every celebration needs a sign that it is about to brainstorm, a boundary marking that signifies when we shift from everyday living into the "sacred"/ the celebration. It is important that anybody recognises this. Simple music, a song or a bell are useful symbols of beginnings and endings. Music does this simply, because it speaks to a different part of our soul, but one could utilize other ways too—a moment of stillness, a candle being lit, a conspicuously spoken line or blessing, a different tone of vox etc.
The introduction.The introductory words tin bring pregnant with beauty and reverence. Something needs to be said to bring our theme clearly before us equally participants in the celebration—non a long speech just a clear and beautiful pic of what we are doing, e.yard. "Today we are welcoming back the fullness of the warmth and calorie-free of the lord's day at the summertime solstice…" "This festival table is a welcome to our honey new baby who is coming to our family…" "We lite this candle for our friend Marjory who has left her worn out, old and weary earthly torso and is at present costless to proceed with her spiritual journey…" "Today we are celebrating just considering spring has come to our garden and we are so glad to have our cute delicate new birch leaves tell usa so…"
Focus/climax.We need to be articulate about what the focus and climax of our celebration is. What is the key activity that makes the focus for the whole celebration? This might be a story for our hearts, or an action, like planting a tree, cutting a block, lighting a candle in a special way, or saying a special poesy.
Ending.This needs to pb united states gently abroad from the climax, perhaps restate our purpose and to create the other boundary… a clear passing from the sacred back into the secular…more than music, a blessing, a silence every bit we "take the calorie-free of the candle into our hearts" as we snuff it.
Every family unit needs to develop their ain means of jubilant life and events. Some things will work better than others, at some times but not others. Y'all will discover this as yous go along. The important affair is to be mettlesome, creative and to utilize all the skills you have to bring richness to your life together and to your celebrations: ideas and values, all the arts, music, poesy, stories, art, craft, love of nature, practical activities, adventures, artistic cooking, fun and wonder. This is what makes life rich, meaningful and cute.
View/download pdf Celebrations
Resource for celebrations and festivals
Many books are available which provide resources and inspiration for celebrations, big and pocket-size and can be found particularly in bookshops serving the Steiner Waldorf Schoolhouse communities.
Online one place these tin can be found is at www.rudolfsteinerbookcentre.com.au
In a search nether 'festivals' at that place are books which provide stories, songs, activity ideas and food recipes for different celebrations including multicultural festivals. There are also books near making daily rhythms more than special. Festivals Family and Food by Diana Carey & Judy Large (Hawthorn Printing, 1983) is an sometime favourite to begin with.
See as well
Creating a peaceful, meaningful Christmas
Creative parenting of the whole child
Love gifts
Strategies for healthy living with young children
Building self-esteem and resilience
schlegelthellight.blogspot.com
Source: https://www.creativelivingwithchildren.com/nurturing-childrens-growth-2/enriching-life-with-children/family-celebrations/
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