Peg Kerr's Journal

This is one of those weeks where I was a little bit at a loss as to what the week was about, and so what would I do the card about? This is week when I start to move the felt ornaments over, one on each day, on my Advent wall hanging. I did a card about that last year. Why bother to do the same card all over again?

I realized that this slotted nicely into something I've been mulling over, not quite consciously this week. I want to talk about rituals, and the place they have in my life, specifically, when regular rituals that have been a great comfort for a long time no longer fit or feel quite right, and in fact, start to feel almost like a burden.

As I explained last year, my sister Betsy gave me the Advent wall hanging as a gift years ago.



For the last several years, I've taken a picture every day as I've moved an ornament over and sent them as a Snapchat picture to the people I'm closest with.

But this year, as I set up the wall hanging, I wondered...should I send out the pictures every day again this year? I've done it before. Heck, I could just send out last year's pictures again, and who would know the difference? What would be different about it? Have I just become a bore? But I liked sending out a picture every day to my loved ones during Advent.

So I decided to continue to take pictures of the felt Advent tree every day, but instead of sending them to that small circle, I would post them to my story. People could look at them if they want. But I would also instead send different Advent pictures out every day to my circle of loved ones. Something I found that was lovely and Christmas-y, things I saw when I was out and about. Something different. Here are the two I sent out yesterday and today:
The first picture I took at the garden section at Home Depot, and the second was a close up of an ornament display at a local grocery store. I'll continue to send out pictures of found things like these every day until Christmas.

As I said, rituals are extremely important to me: going to the Renaissance Faire every year. Washing my face with morning dew on May Day. Lussekatter on St. Lucia's day. Eating strawberries and cream for breakfast on July 6, the day after my anniversary.

But life changes. I've lost my husband, and my children have left home. Some of the entities that supported important rituals are gone (no more May Day parade by Heart of the Beast. No more lovely lazy afternoons shopping at Sophie Jo's Emporium). And so rituals slowly have to change and adapt, too, as the people you shared them with move away, or the rituals themselves don't fit your life anymore. And that can be difficult and sometimes painful. The girls and I have agreed not to exchange holiday gifts this year. It makes sense--we're experiencing a financial pinch, I'm trying to eliminate more stuff coming into my life, and we're undergoing some stress. I am trying to keep the rituals I love, yet make them over to fit my life now and not the life I had five years ago or ten years ago. Even if that means changing the rituals or even letting beloved rituals go.

It means putting up a smaller Christmas tree, and not hanging every ornament I own on it, even the ones I love very much.

I created this card around the Wheel of the Year, a concept that gives structure to the rituals I follow. I put a ritual object in each corner for the four seasons of the year. For spring, I put the Tree of Life from the Heart of the Beast's May Day parade, an annual ritual that has ended as the Heart of the Beast could no longer survive at the same financial level. For Summer, I put in the strawberries and cream I eat each July 6, remembering the day after my anniversary. For fall: the feathered fan with the mirror at its center reflecting my face is the one I bring to the Renaissance Faire every year. For winter, I included a picture of my breakfast of lussekatter I eat every December 13 for St. Lucia day.

(It would have been nice, design-wise, if I could have found/thought of something round to represent Spring, to echo the round shapes in the other three corners and the wheel itself. But the Tree of Life still felt like the best thing to choose.)

Wooden carved Wheel of the Year. Lower right corner: a red bowl of strawberries and cream. Lower left: lussekatter (saffron bun) on green holly plan, two taper candles, and a cup of hot chocolate. Upper right corner: Heart of the Beast Tree of Life (a giant puppet with outstretched arms, crowned with birds). Upper left: a feathered fan with a mirror inset. A woman's face (Peg) looks back at the viewer, reflected in the mirror.

Rituals



Click here to see the 2022 52 Card Project gallery.

Click here to see the 2021 gallery.

One of the best Christmas gifts I ever received was from my sister Betsy: when I was a young mother, she handmade an Advent banner with a Christmas tree and all the felt ornaments to hang on it. It was a huge delight to my girls and me to move the ornaments from the bottom of the banner to hang on the tree one by one as we counted the days down to Christmas. (To avoid arguments, Delia did the even ornaments and Fiona the odd ones.)



This week, I pulled out the banner and hung it again with all its ornaments. Each morning, I shift one of the ornaments to the felt tree at the top of the banner and take a picture which I send out to the girls and a few others as a Snapchat.

This is just one of the rituals we have for the season of Advent and Christmas. Long-time readers of this blog are probably familiar with some of them: I have a whole collection of Christmas pins that I pull out and wear through the month of December. There are decorations we put up every year. We have done annual portraits for years that I use to create a photo card that accompanies a holiday letter I send out to about 120 people. The girls and I do an annual cookie bake with my sisters and my mom. Fiona makes lussekatter for us to eat on December 13 in celebration of St. Lucia day. We have an elaborate Christmas breakfast. We gather with my family in the week between Christmas and New Year's in the evening. Then we round out the holidays with a 12th-night breakfast.

We've had to adjust these rituals as the girls have grown and moved away to make homes of their own, and, of course, when I lost Rob. Last year, the pandemic threw EVERYTHING up in the air, too. It has prompted a great deal of thought about what I truly like doing in the lead up to the holidays, versus what is just an unnecessary burden. I am trying to be flexible: this year, Christmas breakfast will be at Fiona and Alona's house (Eric and Alona's mom will come, too), but Delia and Chris will not be able to join us. As I am working to envision the years to come, as our family grows and Eric and I figure out how we want to intertwine our lives together, rituals will have to change and grow.

I do love those Advent (and Christmas and New Year's) rituals so very much.

This week's card is based on the Advent banner. I made the top part of the banner semi-transparent with my own Christmas tree superimposed over the felt tree, with a scattering of my Christmas pins encircling it.

Advent



Click here to read about the 52 card project and see the year's gallery.

Fiona, bless her heart, still makes sure I have fresh lussekatter rolls on the morning of December 13 every year. Keep the candles burning, people. Love and light to you all.

Fiona was over last night to make the Lussekatter! We also put up our new (artificial) Christmas tree, which looks lovely.



Lussekatter and cocoa for breakfast. Mmm....

St. Lucia Day Eve 2011 Fiona made a quick trip home with her friend Hayley to prepare for St. Lucia Day tomorrow.

Lussekatter 2011

She won't be there with the candle crown on her head to wake us up in the morning (and Delia has already informed us, "hey, don't count on me. I'm barely moving at that time of the morning as it is." Which is perfectly true.)

I drove the two of them back to school afterwards, loaded down with more lussekatter rolls to give her friends tomorrow. I'll miss my girl. But there will still be saffron-scented lussekatter for us in the morning. All is right in the world, and she's where she needs to be.

Happy St. Lucia's Day
Wishing you all love, light and delicious lussekatter

St. Lucia's Day 2009 Fiona with the candle crown and plate of lussekatter for St. Lucia's Day, 2009. (She couldn't find her red sash in the dark)

(Amusingly, I must also note Delia's reaction when Fiona woke her up: "Go away." Apparently, it was a little too early on a dark, December morning for Miss Delia.)

Edited to add: ( Here are a couple of videos to illustrate the way it's celebrated in Sweden )

In the pre-dawn stillness of my bedroom this morning.

"I was planning on serving the chocolate chip English muffins but somebody ate them all."

"I'd meant to stop at a kitchen speciality store, to get some saffron so you could make proper St. Lucia lussekatter bread. But I have to admit, gingerbread cookies make a nice substitute."

"What's saffron?"

"Hey, don't jiggle the bed. You'll spill the cocoa."

"Ooops."

"There'd better not be any cocoa on my bed."

"It's all right. It just landed on the bathrobe. You can wash it out."

"I just washed that bathrobe two days ago."

"Hey, don't fall back asleep, Daddy."

"Just think, people all over the world are doing this."

"Mostly in Scandinavia."

"Well, quite a few in Minnesota. We have a lot of Swedish people here."

I looked around at the little circle of light cast by the (battery-operated) candles of the St. Lucia crown, which Fiona had removed and placed over the cookies plate. Fiona lay curled on her side, in her white chemise with the red sash. Delia lay next to me, snuggled in her bathrobe. Rob was propped up on one elbow, cradling his cup of cocoa, with his eyes at half-mast. The mock candlelight sculpted their features gently, casting a beautiful glow over all their sleepy faces.

A little silence.

"This is what family is all about," I said softly.

Edited to add: (See our pictures from last year, with a link to mrissa's lussekatter bread recipe)