A Natural Christmas

My theme for this week of Advent is "cherish and care for the earth". One way I do that is by celebrating with nature. Each year, this first week, I bring nature indoors, by collecting greens, pine cones, straw, and other natural materials to use for decorations, and for making gifts.

I've been collecting fallen branches of evergreens for the last weeks, and now I will bring them inside to deck my halls.

2023

Greens are the first decorations I put up around the house, along with a few candles, to open the door to a little light, and to connect with the earth. Evergreens are a symbol of eternal life, and also symbolic protection against trouble. Today I bring the protective spirit of nature inside.

Agenda:

1. Read "Shinto Meditations"

2. Stick tree hanging

3. Dry some oranges

4. Make sweet, salty, or spicy nuts

1. Read "Shinto Meditations":

I'm reading "Shinto Meditations for Revering the Earth", by Stuart Picken (2002), which is a collection of Shinto-inspired devotions divided by the seasons.

Chapter 1 is Shinto and Nature. He describes the early followers of Shinto, the way of the kami or divine. "There were kami in everything throughout the universe, and anything could be kami. It was a universe pervaded by the divine, an environment in which divine and human were in constant communion, a sacred universe in which the material and the spiritual were inextricably united and where humans and their divinities coexisted."

(I really believe that this must be the original way of religion for all people. My ancestor were just as connected to the divine nature as any, until politics interfered!)

"Nature was perceived as self-renewing, a cyclic movement of life that should be marked and celebrated at every important juncture."

2. Stick tree hanging:

Last year I saw this idea online, and it looked like an easy way to have a tree without cutting down a tree!

My older grandson loves sticks, so we collected a big armload of them on our walk home from pre-school. I tried to find sticks of a similar thickness.

When we got home, I cut them in to successively smaller lengths and tied them together with strong string.

We hung it on our front door, and added a couple of new decorations each day, using glittery pipe cleaners to wire things securely on to the sticks; that is important because this hanging sees a lot of toddler action!

Ideas for decorations: Pinecones, plastic balls, duplo people, dried oranges.

2. Dry some oranges:

Last year I made some dried oranges to hang on our stick tree, and they were simple to make, but they didn't keep, so I'm making more!

Ingredients: 2 or 3 large oranges, parchment paper, pipe cleaners

1. Preheat the oven to 225ºF. Thinly slice your oranges.
2. Pat dry and place on a baking sheet lined with paper.
3. Bake! Check hourly to make sure the oranges are not burning. If they are starting to brown but not dried yet, reduce the temperature of the oven and keep checking until fully dry.
4. Use pipe cleaners to hang.

4. Make sweet, salty, or spicy nuts:

This is a simple and nice alternative to baked goods. You can make them sweet, or salty-sweet, or spicy-sweet.

Ingredients:

• cooking spray
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 4 c. raw nuts (combine walnut or pecan halves, almonds, cashews, etc.)
• 1 teaspoon salt (optional)
• 2 teaspoons spices (I used half chili powder and half cinnamon on this batch, but cumin and black pepper also work)

1. Preheat oven to 350ºF. Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil and lightly coat with cooking spray.

2. Heat sugar, water, and butter in a small saucepan over medium heat until the butter is melted. Cook for 1 minute and remove from heat.

3. Combine any kinds of raw nuts in a large bowl. Add salt and spices if you want, and stir.

4. Drizzle the butter mixture over the nuts and stir to coat, the spread them out on the foil into a single layer.

5. Bake nuts in the preheated oven for 10 minutes, then take them out and stir them around to make sure the syrup has coated them all. Spread back into a single layer and return to the oven for just a few more minute- watch them because they can burn easily. Allow to cool before serving.