Longest Night Celebration & Neighbourhood Lantern Walk this weekend

Happy solstice!  For the longest night of the year we love to gather outdoors with friends, with candles, lanterns, a bonfire to warm ourselves, and some wood-fired baking from the cob oven.  How will you celebrate the longest night? 

For anyone here in town, don't forget about the annual  neighbourhood Lantern Walk on Dec 21.  Anyone is welcome!  Bring a lantern, and join a slow wintery walk around the snowy streets.  What a lovely idea!  Here are some beautiful ideas for making your own lanterns.  And 10 more ideas for making your own simple lanterns from jars, coloured paper, brown paper bags, paper mache, and more recycled materials.

First big snowfall!

A few days ago...finally!  The first real snowfall!  In the morning it was so pretty topping each dried flower stalk, roof line, and tree branch in the yard.  Our daughter thought the echinacea garden looked like a jaunty field of little gnomes with snow peaked caps. Snow shovels are out and the piles have been started for snow fort building...just waiting for a little more snow.  The hens are not sure if they like it.  We spread straw sprinkled with sunflower seeds & buckwheat (their favourite snack) on the snowy ground to coax them out from the coop just so they can stretch their legs.  Luckily, all the hens who molted in October now have their new winter feathers grown - but just barely.  If it would have been this cold a few weeks ago they would not have fared so well.  Surprisingly, they are still laying eggs.  Usually by solstice they are slowing down with egg production (presumably reserving all their extra energy for keeping warm instead).

Solstice lanterns

We had a great time hosting a lantern making session with a group of neighbourhood kids here this week.  The kids had fun making water colour lanterns with tissue paper cut-outs, a perfect lantern that all ages can easily complete.  We also made lanterns with tissue paper pasted onto mason jars and paper-mache onto balloons (for lovely simple round lanterns).  In the neighbourhood friends of ours have been organizing an annual Solstice Lantern Walk (postponed this year for Dec 23), with everyone bringing along homemade lanterns of all shapes and sizes, as well as hot drinks and plenty of warm gear for walking through the streets on a cold night.  We come back for a little street party and bonfire, and for this our household also prepared a huge basket of cedar & sage bundles, which participants can toss in the solstice bonfire as we speak of hopes and joys for the coming year.  All are welcome to join the lantern walk coming up this Monday.