The Artful Year: Celebrating the Seasons and Holidays with Crafts and Recipes--Over 175 Family- friendly Activities

INTRODUCTION

Celebrating an Artful Year with Children

The art of mothering is to teach the art of living to children.

—ELAINE HEFFNER

IN OUR HOME, we celebrate the seasons and holidays through art, crafts, and cooking together. We mix the familiar (gingerbread cookies) with the unique and creative (stained glass garlands), and we’re always trying out new ideas and combinations.

Celebrating the seasons and holidays is a traditional way to embrace creativity together as a family, but it’s also much more: engaging in arts and crafts as a family is a fun way of decorating, preparing for, and learning about the holidays we celebrate while cultivating creativity and family bonds.

Instead of buying all of our decorations and materials, we prefer to take the time to make our holidays more fun and meaningful by doing at least some of the preparations ourselves. The rewards? Memories and mementos, creative growth in our children and ourselves, and lots of fun!

Art is often considered a solitary pursuit (although it is actually quite enjoyable to do with others), but crafting is traditionally done together (think quilting bees and sewing circles, abuzz with conversation as participants create together or side by side). I think of seasonal and holiday crafts and cooking as wonderful excuses to work with others toward a shared goal, with each member participating at his or her own level. The baby in the high chair can bang spoons while watching and listening, the toddler can help mix, the preschooler can measure out the dried cranberries, the older child can help read the recipe and gather ingredients, and the parents can both supervise (if needed) and help create. And at the end, we have fresh-baked oatmeal-cranberry cookies that we can sit down and enjoy together. There is more savoring, bonding, learning, and memory making in this creative process than when we come home and pop open a box of store-bought cookies. Not that we won’t do that, too, but the family connections in the first scenario are treasured and definitely worth making an extra effort for.

In the past, families often created and connected more naturally. But now, with the fast pace of modern life, overscheduled families, and stores that sell every possible holiday item, we are hard-pressed to find time together. We need to be more deliberate about making this happen.

This is a book for families. When we become parents, we want to create special celebrations for our children. Although we ourselves stopped trick-or-treating and decorating Easter eggs as young adults, likely we will plunge back into the spirit of the holidays with enthusiasm when we have children of our own. We want to pass on cultural traditions to our kids, and we want to celebrate with them.

The crafts, activities, and recipes you’ll find within these pages can be enjoyed by any family, no matter the size, ages, or stages of life. Many of the activities are easily adaptable. Families with younger children, just figuring out which traditions to welcome into their lives, may need to temper their enthusiasm according to the needs of babies and toddlers. Older children can do more themselves, needing little more than guidance and encouragement. But even if your child can do something on his or her own, I encourage you to engage in these activities together as a family, building relationships and traditions in the process.

We are so harried as parents, trying to juggle the impossible (fulfill our dreams, earn a living, build a career, raise children, navigate the modern world) and at the same time teach the art of living (well) to our children. We do the best we can with the resources, traditions, and energy we have at our disposal. I believe the best we can includes celebrating the cycles of life in meaningful ways with our children, funneling the enthusiasm and excitement for the holidays into family harmony and special learning experiences.

We all have the same amount of time—at the end of the year we have each just spent a year. Why not make it an artful year? In doing so, we

•   cultivate a family environment, make memories, and form stronger family bonds while crafting, baking, and celebrating;

•   pass on cultural traditions while continuing to evolve and try new things;

•   nurture creativity, arguably the most important skill of the twenty-first century;

•   consciously enjoy and celebrate all that makes each season and holiday unique;

•   raise children who can connect with others and with nature, who know how to live life fully, and who can in turn pass on their favorite traditions to their children.

I embrace the cycle of the year and use my own creativity to tease out the artfulness of the season and of my family. I seek ways to celebrate that are easy and enjoyable for everyone to do together, with the goal of growing creatively as we celebrate and connect. That’s me.

You are your own best expert on your family traditions as you blend old and new and take your own family year to new artful heights. Anything and everything can be artful, creative, celebrated.

Celebrating 101

When we plan celebrations, many of us think of a party. But we can also celebrate by noticing, sharing, capturing, and creating.

The simple act of noticing and appreciating can be an act of celebration. We celebrate autumn when we go on a fall foliage drive. We celebrate spring with a nature walk to see the crab apple in bloom and new life unfurling around us. It’s perhaps the simplest way to celebrate, but really noticing is at the heart of any celebration.

We take it a step further when we share what we observe with those close to us. We take home the most brilliant red and yellow leaves from under the maple tree to show to our family. Or we pass the binoculars to a friend and point out the bird’s nest high up in the tree.

Collecting or capturing something is another way to celebrate it. We do this when we photograph a child leaping through the sprinkler on a hot summer day—we celebrate the moment and preserve it. We celebrate autumn when gathering acorns and pinecones for our fall nature table. We celebrate Christmas when we draw Santa Claus or the Nativity scene from our imagination. When we choose apple or pumpkin for our cooking, we are capturing the flavors of the season. When we pick daffodils for our windowsill, we are reveling in spring.

And we celebrate through the act of creation as well—whether it’s baking a favorite birthday cake, decorating Easter eggs, or making Christmas ornaments out of salt dough.

The next time you prepare to celebrate a season or holiday, think beyond the party. Notice. Share. Capture. Create.

Considering Traditions

Many of our ideas about seasonal and holiday celebrations are bound by tradition. By definition, traditions are long-established patterns and rituals that are handed down from generation to generation, and we all cherish some of these from our childhoods. Yet they don’t all have to be the same every year. We can modify or discard traditions that are no longer working for our families and even audition a few new ideas each season.

We can and should take a deliberate approach to the cycle of our family year and the traditions we develop together. As we do this, we consider the values we hope to instill in our children. (For me, those values are to be resourceful and creative, slow down, celebrate the life around us, create together as a family, experience and enjoy the seasonal changes, and recognize the beauty in nature and in the handmade.) We can be mindful of how we connect with each other, our past, the natural world, and humankind.

When evaluating or forming seasonal and holiday traditions, I like to keep in mind the old English wedding rhyme something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. Something old can, of course, refer to a tradition that has been passed down to us from previous generations. Something new can be the creativity we use as we celebrate the season, make things, and introduce new traditions. Something borrowed can be ideas brought in from the cultures represented by each side of the family as well as anything we see around us (Pinterest, anyone?) that we want to try. Something blue can represent the colors, images, and scents of the season.

While this wedding rhyme had me scrambling to find the (seemingly) arbitrary blue item when I got married, I like its basic wisdom. Take a bit of tradition, give it a novel twist and shape it to fit your family, and combine it with all that makes a season unique.

How to Use This Book

As you begin reading The Artful Year, choose your season and browse through the activities, recipes, and photos. Don’t expect to do everything in the book. Earmark those that speak to you. Try a couple now, save a couple for next year. Some will become family traditions that you do year after year, some you may try just once, and others may inspire your own ideas or adaptations.

As you craft and cook with children, be attentive to their skills, ages, and developmental stages. Use your judgment in deciding what they can do on their own, what you will help them with, and which steps you might want to do yourself.

Most of the materials mentioned are easily found at your local craft store. However, I’ve provided a resources section at the back of the book for any that might be harder to locate (liquid watercolors and BioColor paint, for example).

The act of making is as important as enjoying the finished product, whether it is a drawing, a Halloween decoration, or chicken noodle soup. With art, especially children’s art, the process is more important than the finished product. The exploration of materials, techniques, tools, ability, and interests trumps all. There may not even be a finished product (think finger painting on a table or an ice sculpture than melts away). With crafts, however, there is the expectation that if we’re sitting down to create starry Christmas ornaments out of Popsicle sticks, there will, in fact, be a wood star of some sort at the end that we can hang on our tree. So the end product is a bit more specific than with art. But there is still a process to be enjoyed. I like to think of this as the zen of crafting. Here are some tips for approaching the crafts in this book:

Use materials that you love and love your materials. Soak in the paint colors, run your fingertips over the lace, inhale deeply the aroma of the apples. Use all of your senses to connect with the materials at hand.

Embrace the process and take your time. It’s not a race to finish the craft you are working on. Instead, slow down and really experience and enjoy the materials, the process, and the company.

See the beauty and the humanity in imperfection. Simply continue creating. If you make something that you deem a mistake, decide how to move forward—keep it, transform it, or start over. It’s really not a big deal.

Learn as you create. Continue to evolve both yourself and your craft.

Enjoy an Artful Year

When we celebrate the seasons (and the holidays so closely tied to them), we celebrate the cycle of life as well as our passage through time here on Earth. It is human nature to connect with those close to us as we celebrate life’s events, including the seasons. Yet we need to be more intentional than ever as we carve out quality time together, celebrate in meaningful ways, build traditions and memories, and create stronger families. It’s not about doing more. It’s about making choices, fostering creativity, and building family connection. Celebrating the seasons and holidays together is a wonderful way to do just that.

I hope you will join me in crafting and celebrating around the year!

ACTIVITIES FOR ALL SEASONS

The seasons are what a symphony ought to be: four perfect movements in harmony with each other.

—ARTHUR RUBINSTEIN

ACTIVITIES

Exploring Nature

Nature Observation and Collection Walk

Observing Wildlife

Nature Tables

Nature’s Colors Scavenger Hunt

Crafts for Any Season

Playdough

Nature Suncatchers

Nature Stained Glass Windows

Melted-Crayon Suncatchers

Embroidery around the Year

Decorated Rocks

Potato Printing

Art through the Seasons

Seasonal or Holiday Pass-the-Drawing Game

Simon Says! Drawing for Every Season

Double-Doodle through the Seasons

Salty Watercolors around the Year

Melted-Crayon Rocks

CELEBRATING EVERY SEASON

NATURE’S SEASONAL CYCLES continually surprise and inspire us all, young and old, but they are all the more exhilarating when witnessed with and through the eyes of a child. Seasonal changes are ideal for introducing children to visual arts and natural science, both of which begin with observation. As spring approaches, we delight in the unfurling of tiny leaves and fragrant blossoms. In summer a frenzied flora and fauna work hard, both competitively and harmoniously, to live out the best of the warm days and complete their life cycles. With autumn, the world experiences a beautiful death—a decay made so lovely that we can’t help but fall for it anew each year. Winter returns with chilly dormancy, balanced by a warm indoor flurry of crafting, baking, holidays, and celebrations.

In my home we celebrate the cycles of the year by surrounding ourselves with the colors of the seasons, the flavors we mix up in the kitchen, beautiful seasonal picture books that capture the imagination and complement the mood, and the crafts we create, rotating and recycling as the seasons switch gears. Some crafts and activities are so exclusive or perfectly suited to the season that we celebrate them solely at that time of the year. Pumpkins. Candy canes. Easter eggs. Others are flexible favorites that can be enjoyed anytime, modified for each season as appropriate. Think playdough, scented and colored to match the season; suncatchers using natural materials; and drawing activities where any theme is fair game.

This is a chapter of just such flexible favorites that we find ourselves turning to again and again and simply adapting to the season at hand.

Exploring Nature

Observing and learning about the natural world as it morphs through the year form the foundation for our understanding of the cycle of the seasons. Young or old, when we take the time and let ourselves truly see—and young children, with their natural curiosity and lack of filters, are great companions for this endeavor—we will find miracles, surprises, and astounding beauty in the smallest nooks and crannies as well as in the grandest of vistas. Inspired by the ever-changing, ever-cycling natural world, my family and I take seasonal nature walks or scavenger hunts and later incorporate the treasures we find into our creative activities, or we display them on our