How to make Palm Sunday branches

Today is Palm Sunday, and in our family we have always prepared for Easter by making Palm Sunday branches or an Easter tree.....now my children are getting older (teens) we will plan to bake bread, but we will always have wonderful memories of making our branches and then hanging our handpainted eggs from them.

 First find a suitable pot and two sticks, then bind the sticks together with wool to form a cross, and place in pot with soil and rocks to create a stable support.

Using florists wire, bind greenery around the cross to symbolise the life and resurrection.

 Place an orange on the cross to symbolise the sun and the life forces.  And a dough rooster on top.  The rooster of course relates to the cock crowing three times when Peter denied Christ, and the rooster who calls in the dawn of the first Easter Sunday.  You can then hang painted eggs from the branches.  We have also used streamers in red, orange and gold, and cotton threaded with dried fruits, as decorations.

 Our dough roosters, all ready for the oven.

 Out of the oven, all nice, fat and golden.

Full instructions for Palm Sunday branches can be found in Festivals with Children.

May you enjoy the richness of Holy Week and Easter with your families.

Pancake Day!!!

Pancake Day always brings great excitement at our house and big decisions:  should we have pancakes for breakfast, afternoon tea or supper???  And shall we have lemon and sugar, fresh berries or real maple syrup???  We enjoy celebrating simple traditions like this in our home for the sense of rhythm they bring to our year.  Personally for me it calls in my favourite time of year:  Autumn, the lengthening of the afternoon light and the hush of the time before Easter.

Years ago when many people fasted for the forty days of Lent they would use up their eggs and milk the day before Ash Wednesday when Lent began.  In England this led to a Lenten-festival including pancake tossing races! All Year Round - a calendar of celebrations is a wonderful treasure trove of ideas for bringing meaningful traditions into your family life, and has a great pancake recipe as well!!!

St Martin's Day

Ostheimer St Martin and the Beggar

November 11 is St Martin's Day, a day I also just happen to celebrate as my birthday!  It's no wonder therefore that St Martin holds a special place in my heart.  In Steiner schools across the Northern Hemisphere they will be celebrating the turning inwards of the season with lantern walks, which in Australia we celebrate at mid-Winter.

So what does this ancient Saint mean for us in our world today, and what can he teach us?  And how can we celebrate this with our children?  And is it meaningful to children in Australia?

St Martin was a fourth-century Roman soldier in southern France, who made a spontaneous charitable gesture when he shared his cloak with a beggar outside the city of Tours. His subsequent dream in which the beggar appeared to him as Christ on high was the decisive event in his life.  Afterwards Martin tried to make peace instead of war and was granted a discharge from the army. After a period of solitary contemplation Martin founded a monastery in France – one of the first Christian monasteries – which included a library of the very best of Greek and Roman philosophical texts. At his death, his popularity was so large that as his coffin was carried by the river for the funeral, people flocked to the banks carrying lanterns (which is guess is how the association with the lantern walk came about).

Martinmas comes just over 40 days before Christmas.  In religious customs the number 40 has always been associated with a time of preparation.  There are 40 days of Lent leading to Easter.  It is the perfect time therefore to begin discussion and sharing as a family in preparation for Advent and Christmas.  The story of St Martin can teach children the value of giving and caring for others, and for creating peace in our world. 

I have been reflecting this evening that this year as my two girls are growing older they are very much ready to step into the "giving" aspect of Christmas.  The young child is full of the "magic" of Christmas, the anticipation, the excitement of receiving the gifts from Santa Claus, which is part of the joy and wonder of childhood today.  But perhaps for the older child it can be a time of greater maturity (as well as enjoying some magic still!) and of thinking what can be "given", not just in material things, but from our hearts and souls. 

...for us I think St Martin's day will become the "turning towards Christmas", the time we will begin to think of what we can make for those we love, what we can clear out and giveaway in terms of those possessions we no longer need or use.

I would love to hear how your family celebrates your special festivals and days, so please feel free to share...

These lovely books have been an inspiration to me over the years...

Festivals with Children
Festivals Together