New Year’s Eve – Wineberry Wood Press

30Dec 2023 by catbird No Comments

New Year’s Eve Simmer Pot

New Year's Eve is a time when cultures all over the world practice various traditions to clear out the old year and start the new year off positively. An easy (and nice smelling!) way to practice a few of them is to make up a special New Year's simmer pot. Use this recipe as a start and add anything else that speaks to you-- you might just really like the smell or want to encourage more of what the plant symbolizes in your life. Juniper is featured here both because it smells nice and because it is used in the Scottish tradition of Hogmanay, or celebration of the last night of the year. It is used for saining or protecting/ blessing the household. The branches are set on fire and the smoke…

27Dec 2023 by catbird No Comments

New Year Family Bucket List Countdown Printable

Free Printable, Nature Journaling, New Year's Eve, Play, Winter

Every year we fill out a bucket list as a family so this year I decided to make one of my own! I made it black and white so it's easier to print out. You can color it if you'd like or leave it as is! The plants I used to decorate the bubbles are all ones I associate with the winter and the new year. Bay, juniper, pine, mistletoe, sage, rosemary, fir and snowdrops. The first 16 have prompts to get you thinking and the last four are blank so you can write in your own! Wishing you the happiest of new years! (Click on the image below to download!)

23Dec 2023 by catbird No Comments

New Year’s Eve Bay Fortune Ball Ornaments

Campfire, Craft Project, Folklore, Nature Art, New Year's Eve, Winter

For whatever reason many of our New Year's Eve traditions revolve around fortune telling. There are a number of cultural fortune telling traditions like the Austrian Bleigießen and the Finnish uudenvuodentina, and it seems like a good time to think about your fortune and or wished for the new year. I actually love low key New Year's Eve with kids-- far more than I enjoyed the expensive and weird nights on the town in my 20s. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that my post kid celebrations are the first time I really enjoyed this this celebration. It's still mistly a late night holiday so while we sneak some nature in here and there (nye nature crowns, first day hikes) much of this night is spent inside.…

14Dec 2023 by catbird 1 Comment

Fun Nature-y Ways to Celebrate New Years Eve with Kids

Craft Project, Nature Art, New Year's Eve, Play, Winter

Six ways to celebrate the New Year's with kids!! Pin for later! Click the pictures below for more info.

02Jan 2023 by catbird 1 Comment

New Year Nature Crowns!!

Craft Project, Free Printable, Nature Art, Nature Collection, New Year's Eve, Play

One of the activities that we do every New Year's Eve is to make some sort of crown or party hat. In teh past we have mostly just colored in something free and printable and not gotten particularly fancy with it, but this year we decided that we needed to step up our crown game. The kids requested nature crowns, but we couldn't think of a way to make them "New Year's Eveish." I considered make stick crowns and spraying them gold because gold seems to be my default on NYE, but then I had an epiphany! Half of the crown would be bare sticks (like winter and the old year...) and the other half would be greenery (spring and the new year!) we ended up adding some sticks with…

28Dec 2022 by catbird No Comments

New Year’s Eve with Kids & Walnut Boats

Craft Project, New Year's Eve, Play

New Years Eve. To be honest I have never been that into this holiday, it just feels like a lot when every fiber of my being is telling me it’s time to rest. I actually enjoy it more now with kids than I ever did when I felt pressure to be out and about though. New Year’s Eve for us has evolved into a night of family games, nature and fun fortune telling activities. We started off years ago with one of those "do an activity every hour countdowns," but seriously who’s little kids can wait an hour between activities?? So now we just just do things at a pretty random pace until we get tired and then we watch a fake ball drop. We also have an all appetizer…

27Dec 2022 by catbird 1 Comment

First Day Hike!

Nature Collection, New Year's Eve, Play

One of the the New Year's traditions we never miss is a first day hike. The idea is that it sets the tone for your year- make getting outside and interacting with nature a priority! This was actually the brainchild of the State Parks in the United States and most parks offer official guided hikes, but we prefer to do our own thing. (Which also sets the tone for the year!) If you are looking for a good hike check out your state's First Day hike offerings! And if you aren't in the US or want to go somewhere else, just pick your favorite park and go for it. It doesn't have to be a fancy or super challenging hike, it just should make you feel good! Last year, on…

27Dec 2022 by catbird 1 Comment

Magical Wax Fortunes for the New Year

Craft Project, New Year's Eve, Play

Bleigießen is an an old Austrian New Year's Eve tradition in which you pour lead into water on New Year’s Eve and try and interpret the image you see made. It translates literally to "lead pouring." You can buy little lead pouring kits in many northern European countries for this very purpose, but the custom is though to be ancient in origin dating back at least as far as the Romans. The practice of telling the future from poured metal is officially called molybdomancy, from the Greek word for lead, molybdos. In Finland, little tin horseshoes are melted and tossed in the snow for the same purpose. There, the shadow the shape makes when held up to the light is more important than the shape itself. Apparently a basket shape…

Category: New Year’s Eve