Martinmas Celebration for 2-5 Year-Olds

Martinmas is a popular festival in our home. I and L both really connect with the story of St. Martin, and both adore reverently carrying their little lights with purpose on a dark night. I was sitting at the computer Monday night, thinking about this, and decided to throw a spontaneous Martinmas celebration and lantern walk. Evites were sent out immediately, and the whole night came together with relatively little preparation.

Monday night we sent the evite, which read:

"We would love your company Wednesday night for an evening in celebration of the little lights in our lives that keep our paths aglow, even in times of darkness.

*Please bring a washed, chopped vegetable to add to our soup pot for dinner, and warm clothing for you and your little ones.

Schedule:
5pm - arrive and add vegetable to soup pot
5pm-5:30pm - lantern making craft
5:30pm - Stone Soup story and St. Martin puppet show
5:40pm - Lantern Walk in the dark!
6 or 6:15ish - Soup and bread dinner, and apple cider

If you would like the words to our lantern song:

"I walk with my little lantern
My lantern goes with me.
Above the stars are shining,
Below, on Earth, shine we.

The Moon, she glows
The cat meows
Hey, hey, hey!
La Poomba La Pumba La Hey!"

Hope to see you there!"

Then the planning began. Tuesday I got everything I needed for the lanterns and food.

For the lanterns, you will need:

enough baby food jars for each child, plus a few extras
pipe cleaners to twist around the mouth of jars, and up into handles
mod podge or other glue
tissue paper in red, orange and yellow
electric tea lights or beeswax tea lights



Wednesday afternoon we set the dining table with a bowl of apples, cucumbers and other snacks



And made some gluten-free muffins with persimmons from our friend's ranch. (The secret here was to get a gluten free muffin mix and add hochiya persimmon pulp and pumpkin pie spices.)



An hour and a half or so before guests were to arrive, I roasted a butternut squash and an acorn nut squash. While they were roasting I filled the crock pot with cider and cinnamon sticks, and set a couple of jars beside it with cinnamon sticks in them for garnish. Then I got out our biggest pot and sautéed garlic and onions in some butter. Then, in went vegetable broth, lots of chopped veggies, and the squash. As guests arrived, each brought a washed, chopped vegetable and added it to our soup:



The children decorated their lanterns at a little table outside, ate muffins, apples and cucumbers, and ran around the yard and house. After everyone - all twelve of them - had made a lantern, I went around and let the children know that we would have a story and puppet show in five minutes. Everyone was enthusiastic and gathered in the living room, which was now dark as I had turned off all the lights. I sat at the story table and lit some candles, told my version of Stone Soup, and then sang a St. Martin puppet show.



Next, it was time for the lantern walk. Each child collected his or her lanterns, and I passed out the lights. They lined up at the back gate and we sang the lantern song while we walked (ok, and sometimes ran) out along the nature path out back in a big loop. The children did so well!



It was so beautiful to see these tiny ones with their little lights, all walking in a long procession in the darkness. Of course the pictures I took from my phone do not do it justice:



The children returned to our home for a bonfire, apple cider with cinnamon sticks, the Stone Soup they had made, and bread.



They loved playing with my husband:



And I think the last guests left at around 7. Short and sweet, and absolutely lovely. Here is Isla's rendition of the event:

Autumn in Santa Barbara

Enjoying the harvest at their uncle's house:



Picking the perfect pumpkin:



Finding lizard friends at the park:



Making and re-making the Autumn Nature Table:



Practicing dressing up for Halloween: (The amazing felted fox hat is from vaiva nat on etsy.)

The Perfect October Day!

How does the Santa Barbara Mama celebrate Autumn? There are so many amazing ways to do this in and near Santa Barbara. Wanting to really embrace the season, we set out for a Fall-themed day. First, we drove to Santa Ynez to "Seeing Spot Farm" (www.seeinspotfarm.com) to ride mini donkeys, feed huge turkeys, and pet goats. While we were there we picked four varieties of apples. The drive wasn't bad at all - about half an hour from Santa Barbara. On the way back, just before turning onto the 154, we stopped at Summerset Farms to pick our own blackberries and raspberries, and sang the blackberry picking song from the Magic Garden, kids 4 kids CD I mentioned in an earlier post:

"Come along, come along to blackberry hill; the berries are ripe, you can pick them until your tongue is all purple, your fingers are sore. Oh, but let's keep on searching for sweet ones. The green ones are bitter, and too hard to pick. They're sour and they're bitter; you're sure to get sick. The red ones are warning, 'we aren't yet black! We'll be riper tomorrow - be sure to check back!' ...over the hill, where the honey suckle grows, there's a very special place where nobody knows. You can't go in, unless you're brave. It's a prickly, stickery blackberry cave. Prickly, stickery blackberry cave. You can't go in unless you're brave, but I have my boots on and very long sleeves, and I know I'll be safe when I'm hiding beneath the leaves. Tug a tug tug, tug a tug tug, there are prickles - beware! but the berries are calling, 'Come and pick us if you dare!'"

There we also picked up the awesome "Australian Blue" pumpkin you see here at Isla's ever-changing nature table.



We came home and decided to make some tea with some of the apples. To make it extra festive, we hollowed out some apples to make cups (kind of falls into the "easier said than done" category, but if I can do it I know you can!). To make the tea, we cut 1" chunks of apple and put them in a pot with drinking water (one apple per cup of water... as a rule I'd use one small apple per person at your tea party). Then we let it simmer for maybe seven or eight minutes. We strained out the chunks and poured the tea into the apple cups. To fancy it up, we put a little cinnamon sugar in it. I would have liked to have cinnamon sticks to stir it, but we didn't have any this time. With the leftover chunks in the pot we made "crustless apple pie" by spooning them into bowls and sprinkling with cinnamon sugar. So easy!

We finished off the day with the Apple Story, author unknown, and some parts changed to please my kid: A young girl has played with her toys all day, and now does not know what to do. She goes to her mother and asks her what she should do next. Her mother tells her that she can look for a little red house, with no windows or doors that has a star inside. The little girl goes to her grandfather and asks him if he knows where there might be a little red house, with no windows or doors, with a star inside. He does not know, but tells her to ask her grandmother. So the young girl goes to her grandmother and asks her if she knows where there might be a little red house, with no windows or doors, with a star inside. The grandmother does not know, but tells the little girl to ask Father Sun. The little girl asks Father Sun where there might be a little red house, with no windows or doors, with a star inside. Father Sun replies that he does not know, but that the little girl should ask Sister Wind. The little girl goes to find Sister Wind. She asks her where there might be a little red house, with no windows or doors, with a star inside. Sister Wind replies, "Whoooooooooooooooo," which sounds like, "Follow meeeeeeeeeeee," so the little girl follows the wind out to the orchard, where she sees an apple on the ground. "A little red house with no windows or doors!" she cries, and runs home to show her mother. But then she asks her mother about the star inside. Her mother cuts the apple in half (we did this at this point in the story) crosswise, not lengthwise, to reveal the star in the middle of the apple!

I love this story, because I remember the exact point when I discovered the star in the middle of an apple: My pre-school teacher had shown it to me. I thought it was incredible, and Isla was very pleased with the story. What a great day!

Autumn Nature Table / Playscape

I love the Fall! Isla's Autumn Nature Table is always changing, and she spent a lot of time and care making it just right this afternoon. She uses it like a playscape and has fun finding new things to add to it. We walked the neighborhood in search of Fall leaves, and were lucky to find a bunch right around the corner. All of the extras we are in the process of pressing, and then we'll mod-podge them onto a short, squatty glass vase for a candle-holder centerpiece for the dinner table. I'm hoping the pumpkins from our garden will be ready soon so we can add one to the Fall scape. Later this week, if it stays chilly, I plan on making apple cider and we can serve it in cups made from apples!