Celebrating the Winter Solstice was one of my first posts here at Eco Child’s Play!  I’m a summer lover and today I’m practically giddy that there will 15 HOURS of daylight! What a wonderful day to remind our kids that the sun is, ultimately, the energetic source of all we have.

Making small (or large, if that’s your cup ‘o herbal tea!) celebrations out of the Solstices and Equinoxes is one more way to teach your children that there is a rhythm to nature and a rhythm to life. If Winter Solstice is comparable to a “time to weep,” Summer Solstice is the “time to laugh!” (Thank you, Ecclesiastes for the most beautiful words on the seasonality of life…and thank you to the Byrds for putting it to music!)

Celebrate the longest day of the year with seasonal food and fun.  The Celts believe today is the day you are most likely to see the faerie folk; go on a faerie-spotting walk and keep your eyes peeled!  Have your kids draw the faeries they saw, or almost saw out of the corner of their eye!

There is a nice variety foods you can associate with this day, yellow and orange food that are the colors of the sun are encouraged: Make real lemonade, homemade bread and orange honey butter, stuffed cherry tomatoes and lavender faerie cookies-YUM!

While your insides celebrate with fresh seasonal foods, adorn your outsides with a crown of flowers.  I found several crafty ways to do this.  Activity TV has a great video, but it uses wire and plastic flowers. Ugh.  Nothing beats natural materias that can be composted and/or recycled.  Of course, if you are cement-bound and have no way to get fresh flowers, you can always do a paperplate version.

What a treat the longest day of the year falls on a Friday.  This is a perfect Solstice to extend the bedtime, watch the sun set in the west and tell adventuresome faerie stories around a fire (honey mead for the grown-ups and dancing optional!)

[This post was written by Lee Welles.]