Celebrating our Celtic Roots on the Longest Night

I don't know how my mother would have felt about this -- might have been a bit too pagan for her. But I like to think of it as exploring our celtic roots.

Julia and I have a little tradition to celebrate the summer solstice -- the longest day of the year on June 21, so since we were off so early from school this year, we decided that we'd do something for commemorate the longest night of the year.


I remember seeing a Little Bear episode when Julia was little that had the gang celebrating the longest night of the year by decorating the forest with treats for the animals and birds. That got me thinking....perhaps some bird feeders made from pine cones.

Off to the park we went to collect some of nature's treasures.


And then to Carmel's classroom to craft the peanut butter and birdseed treats. Not to worry -- we cleaned and washed our work table in the nut-free classroom.

Necessity is the mother of invention as Carmel showed --

a little holder to keep our sticky feeders.

1. Thread. 2. Spread . 3. Dip.

4. Hang.

First we started with the little pine tree in Carmel's front yard.

She hoped that the treats would attract some cardinals

to her tree.

As of Christmas Eve, there have been no takers.

However, the trees in the park by Papa's house that we decorated

have been stripped bare of their treats.

Tried to get an artistic shot here to pay tribute to the longest night.

No such luck though.

But we enjoyed the craft,

the frolicing in the snow to decorate trees in the dark,

the occasional errant snowball whizzing overhead,

and the thought that tomorrow we'd be a day closer to the

shortest day of the year.

Next year -- we will add snow candles to the list of solstice activities --

if Mother Nature and the weather cooperate.