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The end of #12DaysOfChristmasMovies

The end of #12DaysOfChristmasMovies

I suppose it started on Friday when The Youngest was not at all interested in going to get a family picture taken with Santa OR The Grinch. I sort of pushed back thinking it would be a fun Christmas activity & they said, “I don’t mind taking a family photo for Christmas, I am just not interested in the Santa/Grinch part.” Fair enough.

The entire scenario had a bit of “the beginning of the end” vibes.

We first started our #13DaysOfHalloweenMovies and #12DaysOfChristmas movies events in 2020 when it was the height of the pandemic. I was looking for ways we could celebrate the seasons in the face of no trick-or-treating and, big family dinners & visits to see Santa. The kids were 10 and 12 at this point & they had just had the rug pulled out from under them: no school, no friends, no family, no typical holiday celebrations.

It worked. We watched movies, shared our reviews with family and friends on social media and a new tradition was born. People told me that they looked forward to the kid’s weird reviews of things they had never noticed about movies they loved. It was fun…for awhile.

It’s 2023 now though and the kids are 13 and 15 and have mostly gone back to a normal existence. So instead of a fun activity we do as a family, it’s slowly morphed into a chore. We have slogged through a few movies in the past week and a bit and quite frankly I wasn’t enjoying it and I don’t get the impression Mr. Tucker and the kids were either. So after a busy weekend full of whirlwind activities I announced to the family that #12DaysOfChristmasMovies was coming to an end. We were all relieved.

The Eldest pointed out that we were more of a Halloween family and Mr. Tucker mentioned that there were way more movies for that time of year anyway. He said the Christmas movies seemed to have a couple of good releases a year but that the majority felt like a slog through a low-budget swamp. Fair enough. We still will watch new movies that pique our interest (and revisit some classics!) but not on such a rigid schedule.

What worked during the pandemic when we were all home with nothing to do didn’t transfer well to kids who were older and developing their own Christmas traditions with friends.

This lengthy preamble has a point and it is this: if a tradition doesn’t work for you, feel free to change it. I spent many years rolling the holiday rock uphill like some modern-day Sisyphean Santa and quite frankly, I resented it. My mother did it, my grandmother did it, my great-grandmother did it and I am stopping it. It’s too much work and the return on investment is low. If the point is to spend time with loved ones, then that is what we should focus on, not a rigid standard of how we spend time together. The pandemic gave me a perfect opportunity to switch more things up, which I happily did & continue to do. Here is a small list:

– We no longer get a fresh tree: as I became more disabled, the work fell more on Mr. Tucker’s head to drag a fresh tree home and decorate it. Last year we found a pre-lit tree on sale at Canadian Tire and we’ve never looked back. The Eldest was a bit disappointed because she loves the smell of a fresh tree, so I bought her an electric wax melt contraption and some melts that smell like evergreens. Mr. Tucker is happy, the smell of balsam fills the air and we’ve reduced our fire hazards. I do have fresh greenery in the form of a wreath that was bought from a local farm that was a fundraiser for The Youngest’s school. A little bit from column A, a little bit from column B.

– We no longer host a HUGE Christmas dinner: Mr. Tucker and I are a> the only people in the family with younger children; b> the main connection between both our families. For years we hosted 11-15 people for a large family dinner. It was exhausting, expensive and hugely unappreciated. While some people helped clean and people brought things, we were constantly inundated with the odd snarky comment and the occasional heated discussion. When the pandemic hit, we breathed a huge sigh of relief and stopped doing it. Now we order Chinese food on Christmas eve to hang out with my dad, Christmas day we eat leftover Chinese food, and Boxing day my stepson comes over and he and Mr. Tucker cook an elaborate dinner together (they both love cooking & my stepson is a sous chef). Christmas is now a relaxing, calm affair.

– We no longer do a children’s cookie decorating party: We used to do the Christmas cookie decorating party every year and other friends hosted the Easter egg decorating party, the Canada day party, and the Halloween potluck where we’d hangout and have dinner and drinks before heading out en masse to go trick-or-treating. Sadly, while these were great times, our kids got older and aged out and the parents also aged and didn’t want to do anymore hosting. I have some fantastic memories from those years though! We’ve instead replaced it with decorating cupcakes for The Mission’s Christmas dinner.

– I stopped doing Christmas cards: I really thought I would do some this year! I have had The Eldest draw our cards in recent years but you know what? She is too busy being a teenager to prioritize that anymore. Christmas cards are also super expensive to mail, averaging about $75-$100 a year to send out 50 cards (depending on if we used Santa photos we had to pay for and how many we sent out). Again, this feels like a relief now that I have made the decision.

– We focus more on Advent calendars than gifts: This is kind of a weird one because it saves us not much money or time but as a family we have decided that a small gift every day is much better than a bunch of gifts on Christmas morning. The Eldest loves a good makeup calendar, The Youngest loves a tea calendar and we all have used book calendars. I find it makes the entire month special for us.

If the holiday season is stressful and full of expectations, I heartily suggest you reject all of that (as best as possible) and concentrate on the parts of the season you enjoy and that makes you happy. I love the midwinter season: I love crafts, good food, friends & family, The Vinyl Café Christmas album and chilling out by the fire with a book and a cup of tea. So I focus on those things and spending time with my immediate family & good friends. Whether or not you do all the things or if you don’t do all of the things I guarantee someone will be disappointed, so you may as well just disappoint everyone and save yourself the work.

2023 holiday preparations and my birthday

2023 holiday preparations and my birthday

Yesterday was my birthday. So because the Wordle is my love language, I told myself that the Wordle of the day would guide my birthday:

So Mr. Tucker made me breakfast that featured bacon!

Last week was a whirlwind of activities with friends and I am constantly grateful for the amazing people I have in my life. I forgot to post tree decorating pics, which happened earlier in the month. Last year one of The Americans* put together all of the pie pieces from the various thrifted Trivial Pursuit games she has and sent all of us our colours to be used in ornaments! They remain – to this day – some of my favourite ornaments.



Also, our friends The Cohens invited us over to celebrate Hannukah with them, which meant a lot of delicious latkes and donuts that they made for the occasion. We also got to hang out with their amazing babies, which is also a pleasure. The Cohens have such a lovely, close-knit family that it is such a joy to be around them all. I am grateful for their continued friendship – especially since they also live in the neighbourhood!

It’s funny because my friend’s daughter** married into the Cohen family and we have always stayed relatively close/in touch. It’s strange and beautiful that my babies are now holding/babysitting her babies when I used to hold/babysit her when she was a baby. The circle of life, Simba.



My birthday weekend was pretty great, all told.

Mr. Tucker and I chatted on Thursday evening about how things were looking financially. That came on the heels of him trying to install the microwave above the stove in the condo with a friend of ours…and it not working out. So now we have to find someone who will install it for us. SIGH. Finding someone to do the complete condo renovation was hard enough as it was because it was such a small job, which is why Mr. Tucker just DIY’d it. So now we’ve tripped at the home stretch.

But instead of getting down about it all, we’ve just decided to roll with it, assume he will have to work longer than anticipated, and then we promptly decided to free up some money in our budget for more fun things with the kids this holiday season.

While I am not a person who enjoys receiving gifts, I do enjoy experiences a LOT. So with the stress of this season upon us we made the decision to eat out not once, but TWICE this weekend. We had already planned to go out for all-you-can-eat sushi on Sunday for my birthday but we also went out to a mid-range steakhouse for dinner on Friday before hitting the mall. The Eldest was having a Christmas gift exchange sleepover at a friend’s place the next night so she wanted to grab some gifts.

We had an amazing time Friday night just having a leisurely dinner, hanging out as a family and chatting about our respective weeks. Was it expensive? I think I physically cringed when I saw the bill (don’t tell teenagers that they can order “anything they want.” Especially if your teenagers love lobster). Do I regret it? Not at all. It was a fantastic night, The Eldest got a steal on her friend gifts, we bought the kids Christmas pajamas as well and it was an easy night all around.

Saturday found The Eldest baking cupcakes for our yearly Cupcakes 4 Christmas donation for The Mission’s Christmas dinner. The Youngest spent the evening decorating them, and Mr. Tucker dropped them off bright and early Sunday morning.



While the kitchen was turned into a cupcake factory, I snuck out for an intro pottery class! I share a birthday with one of my closest friends and so three of us decided that we would celebrate together by trying our hands at the pottery wheel. It was…an adventure! While I loved the class – and it flew by so quickly – I feel like I would like more instruction and more skillbuilding that a short one-off class can give. I may look into longer classes next fall.



Our pottery will be fired and glazed and in a few weeks we can pick them up from the store. I am looking forward to it!

Sunday – on my birthday proper – I basically spent the day playing video games, as I requested. For dinner we had AYCE sushi at a (surprisingly great) restaurant near us. The food is good and they have robot servers, which is just charming. It’s less of a relaxing hangout type of dinner and more of a HOW MUCH CAN I GET INTO MY FACEHOLE type of event. I have long learned to not overdo it but my sushi-loving children went overboard and suffered greatly for it. I am still surprised at how much the kids can shove in there, it feels almost like it defies physics.

Back at home, Mr. Tucker and I had a few celebratory birthday drinks while the kids readied themselves for the school week ahead. We haven’t had a lot of time to just sit and BE so it was a lovely way to end a whirlwind of a week and a really great birthday.

Today I am in full planning mode for our Winter Solstice party on the 21st. Since people of all ages and from various places will be joining us after a long hiatus, I want to make it the best one yet. We haven’t had one since 2019 so I am very excited to host one again.

I hope you are all well and I wish for a non-hectic week for all!


*These ones are my Americans. Get your own.
**The daughter is the child of the woman who used to live on the 200 acre farm mentioned in the Wordle link.

Have yourself a merry little update…

Have yourself a merry little update…

We are fully in our #12DaysOfChristmasMovies era. So basically our evenings are dinner and a movie every night!

Today my friend K dropped off a fruitcake for Mr. Tucker – who loves the stuff! Her fruitcakes are particularly special because she candies all of her own fruit. He is very judicious with the fruitcake and savours every bite.

Tonight we are heading over to our friends The Cohens for dinner and Latkes and we are so stoked to see them! Life has been busy with all of our kids getting the flu and colds all through the fall so it’s been pretty impossible to make time to hangout. Since I had so much medical drama we haven’t really even seen them since the summer.

I am planning to host a Winter Solstice party on the 21st but I am trying not to get my hopes up that it will happen (but I bought food for it anyway, because I am an optimist!). It’s been canceled for the past 3 years for obvious (covid) and non-obvious (also covid) reasons. My hope is to have a wee party with crafts and fireside chats. I have also convinced The Eldest and Mr. Tucker to perhaps play some music for the event. Solstice is my favourite part of the holidays and it’s sad that I haven’t been able to celebrate it. I will send the invites out today.

Other than that, I am basically just playing The Witcher, reading books, hanging out with the family, and trying to plan for the new year. I have a few things I usually do and while I am not a resolution person, I am a planner by nature and have some plans for 2024.

To round this off, two links:

I cannot disagree with this list of books to buy for the beginner. In fact, I lost my OG copy of The Wealthy Barber and just bought a used one online. I still maintain that it is one of the BEST (albeit dated) books for a young adult to read if they are just starting out.

When the foundation is broken: Both Taylor and Britney had great success early on. They broke records and appeared destined for Great Things. Two decades later, Taylor is TIME’s Person of the Year, while Britney spends most of her time isolated inside her home and putting out weird Instagram posts. She is, by her own admission, struggling to put her life back together…I know we all know this, but it bears repeating: It is really, really hard to make a success of your life if your foundation is broken. It is hard to be “a source of light” when you are constantly fighting darkness, both inside and outside of yourself.

Going sideways

Going sideways

Sometimes Mr. Tucker has a frustrating work week and that always makes me run* to my spreadsheet. I like to double-check that the numbers are still on track. We are so lucky to have a permanent form of income right now that could carry the house should he lose his job. It’s better he doesn’t lose it – and it’s not in danger of being lost – but we could manage.

The one thing it can’t do though is cover the condo expenses (at least not without significantly reducing our lifestyle). We have been ->this close<- to getting everything done in there for weeks now but every time Mr. Tucker makes a plan to go and finish off some of the details, he gets derailed. Sure, it’s been a never-ending deluge of work incidents but it’s also been random, uncontrollable stuff, which makes it worse! For example, he got caught up in a protest downtown for so long that he ran out of time and then had to double back to pick up a kid in time. It feels sometimes like all forces are against us.

But the good news is that the Bank of Canada hasn’t raised the rate and people smarter than me suspect they will start lowering in a cycle or two. That may help the housing market a bit.

The worst part is that our chequing account is lower than it’s ever been. I can’t believe that at one point in my life it was normal to have under $5 in a chequing account because today if it dips under $1500 I panic. In all fairness, everything will get paid, and things are fine but it’s amazing what you get used to.

It’s been such a heck of a time for bleeding money – and right before the holiday season**, too! Part of the reason why it has dipped so low is that we had to buy all new appliances for the condo and since we abhor carrying debt, it got paid as soon as the credit card balance was due. We anticipated that expense but then came a series of unexpected expenses:

    • Mr. Tucker’s glasses broke, so that was an eye exam and some new glasses (thank you benefits for paying a lot of that!).
    • Our car randomly died downtown so Mr. Tucker had to have it towed to the dealership. They couldn’t figure out why it wouldn’t start but still charged us a couple of hundred to look at it (but hey, free car wash***?)! There were three Lyfts on top of that to get back and forth. We got a battery jumper kit for the car in case it happened again because even with the free tow, we still need the car to go vroom.
    • We went to the dentist this week and learned that Mr. Tucker’s benefits have run out, so that is more out-of-pocket money we hadn’t anticipated (and I can only snail mail his portion to my benefit company like it is the freaking 90s).
    • Then, the piece de resistance: yesterday we had our first major snowfall…and the snowblower stopped working. We have given in for this year and just paid for a snow removal service. In all honesty, the snowblower came with the house and was probably old when we moved in. We’ve lived here for 6 years now so it was probably time. We will look into fixing it when we have less on our plates****.

Everything is just so incredibly frustrating right now for sure. But the one thing I am glad of is that we have the money to cover the above expenses because we keep money aside just for situations like these. Every month I slide some cash away into accounts labeled: car, health, and house expenses. It hurts me to actually use the money in there but I am glad it is there for us to not have to panic about unexpected expenses. I use the word “unanticipated” loosely because most of us should know that random expenses will pop up when we least expect them to.

So I am grateful for past me for looking out for today me but man, it’s only the first full week in December and I am still staring down a bunch of social events this month (it’s also my birthday a week before Christmas). While they aren’t all events that will cost money, some are and I am ok with that. Because instead of griping about the cost, I am grateful that I have friends I can spend time with and that I have access to a variety of different places where I can be social.

On that note, I recently finished The Good Life and I highly recommend it! It isn’t heavy with data but more about the stories of people who have happy lives vs. people who have unhappy lives. I’ll give you the crux of it: having high quality, close, positive relationships throughout your life is the key.


* LOL metaphorically. I can’t run.
** I save for that all year round so it doesn’t really affect me but I have upped our budget because the social aspect of this time of year has become more expensive but I would rather keep those events in our lives especially post-pandemic.
*** I’ll let you decide if $237 is a fair price for a car wash (spoiler: nope).
**** No, we are not going to shovel it ourselves. The last thing we need is the only able-bodied adult to have a massive coronary.

A great life is a series of small moments

A great life is a series of small moments


What I’m reading
• Why faux self-care won’t solve our problems. Honestly, I have come to believe that the self-care we truly need is more help from others, a deeper sense of community and time to be able to breathe & do the things that bring us joy.

• People who socialize with others outside of their homes live longer than those who don’t.

• I’ve sung Katherine May’s praises many times here but today’s piece the art of hibernation. Is lovely. I also have recently purchased her book Wintering after taking it out so many times from the library. I highly recommend you read it, especially if you live in the cold north, are feeling troubled or get a bit down by winter.

If you like that, she has a post of her Christmas reads. I read the Christmas Chronicles last year based on her recommendation and I am going to sift through the comments to find more. I’ve been sorely lacking the spirit this year* with all that has been going on & despite being done my gift shopping, I need a little cheer that money can’t buy.

Serendipity

Sometimes a perfect storm of factors come together and create the most beautiful, serendipitous moments.

The Eldest brought her oboe home from school with the intent to practice this weekend. It’s a momentous occasion because she NEVER brings it home. She is one of those people with a natural knack for music and since she has already played harp for almost 10 years, she gets by on very little work.

Hilariously, this is one of our biggest weekends in awhile. Mr. Tucker spent yesterday painting the office downstairs & The Eldest spent last night pack up all of her stuff for the move. This morning Mr. Tucker moved all the large furniture and The Eldest is currently hauling all of her books and knickknacks down while he rebuilds it. Then this afternoon while she sets up her new room in the basement, he will be painting her old room to make it into a shared office for both of us. Then tomorrow he will haul all of his office stuff into the new space and move my desk in from the living room. We still need to figure out a shared desk situation. I also have dinner out tonight, we have a games night tomorrow with some friends, The Youngest has a birthday party, my dad is visiting, The Eldest zips off to a ski hill for some job training all day…It’s a LOT.

…but I get away from the point, which is: we have zero time for much else – and she brought the oboe home fully intending to practice. 🤦‍♀️

I ribbed her about it but as it turns out, she did indeed get to practice. After dinner last night Mr. Tucker and I put on a fire and were chatting in the living room. The Eldest came in and announced that she was tired of packing and so decided to play for us. Just then, The Youngest came in with their blanket and decided to lay down on the couch.

The Eldest played some school songs for a bit and then went about trying to find some sheet music for My Chemical Romance songs. Since there is no sheet music for MCR for the oboe (we were all quite shocked.lol) she used flute music. The Youngest started to sing along. Mr. Tucker grabbed his guitar and then they started to try and figure out various songs together. Eventually, it became clear that the oboe was not a great instrument for MCR songs, so the kids & Mr. Tucker just started a fireside sing-a-long of a bunch of songs they all know the lyrics to.

I experienced genuine happiness in that moment. You couldn’t plan it, you couldn’t force it. It was one of those evenings that just organically came together. Everyone was laughing at trying to remember the lyrics and to figure out the tablature. It was just perfect. It reminded me of driving in Puerto Rico and having them all shout out the songs at the top of their lungs as we drove back from Ponce. These are the little moments that give us a good life.

I hope everyone has a lovely weekend.

*Thanksgiving in Canada is the second weekend in October, which leads nicely into Halloween. Then until November 11th is Remembrance Day season for me. Typically on the 12th however I launch fully into Yule mode.

Life update: Christmas, condo & the Youngest pondering high school

Life update: Christmas, condo & the Youngest pondering high school

Links
• Used wisely, carefully: a bit of a bad thing can be good

• Great tools for Canadians from TriDelta determine the value of your final estate and the donation planner.

• Three ways to build wealth with dividend investing (TD Bank video). I follow all three of these speakers online even though they all have different styles of building wealth. In fact, I follow a lot of people – even people I vehemently disagree with – because I feel like it’s important to challenge your own assumptions.

• Disengage: Modern life subjects us to all-consuming demands. That’s why we should reflect on what it means to step away from it all.

• Moneysense magazine did a poll about the worst money advice and these are the (fascinating and unsurprising) results.

• A fantastic read. The Snack Cake Economy: how I learned about money in prison.

• Retirees tend to be happier even if their finances aren’t great.

A life update
In an effort to rein in our spending we took stock of all the food we have in our pantry and freezers and plan to budget a minimal amount for food this month with no eating out. Our CSA dropped our last basket off two weeks ago and so we do need a few fruits and vegetables as well as a few staples. Otherwise, we are trying to work with what we already have.

The Youngest and Mr. Tucker went to an information night for a specialty high school in the area and they came home eager to do an application! I was pleasantly surprised when they sent it to me via email to edit and give them feedback. The application process opens soon and so I am happy to see that they are taking it seriously. Apparently they took 58 students (plus 20 on the waitlist) into the program last year but had 120 applications total. It’s an almost 50% acceptance rate so if they work hard I am sure they will have a shot. So cross all of your fingers for my kid, please!

Condo
I was joking with the Americans* in the group chat that the condo situation feels cursed and that I need to hire someone to sage the place. Every time we get close to the end, another thing blindsides us. On Friday Mr. Tucker went to finish things up only to lose a FOB in the parking brake of the car and then got stuck in a work emergency. So he ended spending most of the time there on a call.

We went to buy appliances only to discover that one elevator was down so that we couldn’t book one to get the appliances upstairs. So now that we are nearing the end I have so much trepidation about what new and exciting derailment is going to happen? We’re trying to stay positive but man it feels like every time we get closer to the end, we get tripped up.

We ended up researching appliances last night and plan to head out and buy them this week and have them delivered on a day that Mr. Tucker books off (see story below!). We will get those in, stage that place and then throw it up on the market as soon as we can. Mr. Tucker – who has absolutely zero faith in the unseen/unknown/spiritual said to me today, “I really hope that whatever the universe is playing at, it’s playing at because it is helping us with the timing of selling the condo.” I honestly hope so as well!

The series of unfortunate events that have delayed the renovations and caused us so much time and given us so much anxiety has done one thing for me: it’s lessoned my nostalgia. I used to hem and haw over selling it vs. renting it out and now I just want it gone. It’s been an anchor on our time, our energy and our finances and it is 100% time to move on from this phase of our lives. So I’m thankful for small miracles, I suppose.

The Holidays are upon us
Last week was used book Advent Calendar day! It’s one of my favourite days of the year and since it is so popular you need to get there early to queue up if you want some good ones. A local bookstore spends a lot of time wrapping up 24 books and packaging them by language, age, genre, media (comic/dvd etc.) I made Mr. Tucker take the afternoon off work this year because last year he did not and of course it was chaos. Last year, I was left scrambling trying to manage the weight of the books while he stood outside in the parking lot on a work call, balancing his laptop in his hands. We vowed never again! It’s actually become a bit of a family joke that when he says the words, “Oh it’s pretty dead at work today, I will just hop out to do X…” all hell breaks loose at work and he’s stuck managing a crisis.

Well not this year!

This year I had him take the afternoon off and the book adventure was smooth sailing. We then hit IKEA because I love their Christmas paper shop and we needed a few extra tubes for this year. I had wanted to hit the cafeteria for lunch but unfortunately we had a delivery arrive of computer components and we didn’t want to leave them sitting out on our porch for too long. Still, it was a productive day.

I know people hate me for it but I generally do all of my Christmas shopping at the start of November. In fact, aside from a few small things for stockings I am pretty much done. I just generally love the fall and early winter between Samhain and the Winter Solstice/Yule that I don’t want to spend it worrying about shopping. I also learned the hard way that a lot of things can sell out very quickly. For example, The Eldest wanted a specific Advent Calendar this year and by the time I got around to ordering it, it was sold out! I managed to find it on another website so crisis averted but had I waited she would have been sorely disappointed. Yes, if you are sensing a theme: we love Advent Calendars more than actual Christmas gifts so we tend to spend more of our money there.

When life was busier and our minds were more chaotic I would wait until Christmas Eve where Mr. Tucker and I would get drunk, throw on the The Vinyl Café Christmas collection and get wrapping! But an older and wiser me has decided to instead do a bit of wrapping during the daytime when the kids are in school. It worked out really well last year and I managed to get it all done by December 1st. That way I managed to enjoy the crafting and friend and family get-togethers during the month without stressing about all of the other drama. December is also my birthday month so I spent a lot of years not celebrating because it was just too much to add yet another task to the list. Now that I have a handle on the season I do plan a nice dinner with the family this year, which will be a lovely break from our normal routine.

*These are my Americans, get your own

Nollaig na mBan

Nollaig na mBan

Through Kerri ní Dochartaigh’s newsletter, Scéal I discovered the tradition of Nollaig na mBan, or Women’s Christmas. Set on January 6th (also see: Twelfth Night, Little Christmas & Epiphany) it is a day where women and men reverse roles: the women go to the pub or have parties with each other for a day and the men take care of chores. It seems to be the most popular in counties Cork and Kerry. I love this excerpt from Irish Central:

Speaking to the Times, Irish scholar Alan Titley remarked that the tradition was most common in the west of Ireland in a litany of different ways. “Most women in west Kerry would have raised five or six turkeys for sale at the Christmas market,” he said. “They kept the money – like egg money – and if there was anything left over after Christmas, they spent it on themselves.”

A common phrase was “Nollaig na mBan, Nollaig gan mhaith” (“Women’s Christmas, no good Christmas”), referring to the lack of plentiful feasts by the time January 6 came around.

Siobhan Fahy, from Ballyferriter on the Dingle Peninsula, told The Irish Times: “But us women would go visiting that afternoon. It was a very simple celebration, just eating a slice of currant loaf in someone’s house and having a cup of tea and a chat, but that was the day you’d do something for yourself and have a rest after all the Christmas work.”

I just find these little traditions so charming because in our modern world we often don’t give thanks in this way, or even have many days to slow down. In fact, it’s been estimated that the Medieval peasant received 8 weeks to half a year off for feast days, a far cry than the 10 days most people in North America are allotted. Clearly, no one would prefer to be a Medieval peasant but I love the idea of incorporating these little regional traditions into the chaos of everyday life.

If you can get a hold of a copy, I also adore Mrs. Sharp’s Traditions. It’s a (US-centric) fictional book on Victorian activities for families to celebrate the seasons and holidays throughout the year.