Ten Ideas for Young Families on New Year's Eve

In an effort to add interesting activities to our holiday, I asked my friends how they celebrate New Year's Eve. I expected to be barraged with an entire arsenal of ideas, considering how many inspirational and creative friends I have. But after the first three responses said the same thing, I added this qualifier: "I'm looking for activities a little livelier than sleep." 

So for all my friends who need family-friendly ideas, you are welcome. 

1. Countdown Activity Bags
Write activities on slips of paper and put each one into a paper lunch sack. On the outside of each sack, write the hour the bag should be opened. This website gives you printable clock faces to put on the front of each sack. Your activities don't need to be exotic. Children love opening a bag that says, 'Make a snack' or 'Go light the sparklers.'

Instead of paper sacks, I plan to put my slips of paper in balloons and let the children pop the balloons to get the next activity. I already know my children love this idea because we sometimes do it for Mix-Up Day at school to determine the order of their classes.

2. Reminisce
Watch video clips or look at pictures you've taken of the family during the year. Reflect on the high and low points of your year. This is a great time to remember the good things the Lord has done for your family and to recount how He helped you through the tough times.

3. Photo Hunt
Print out as many photos of your year as you want and hide them around your house. I plan to print about 15. After everyone searches for and finds the pictures, make it a group effort to arrange them in chronological order. 

4. Set Goals for the Coming Year
Take time for everyone to write down personal and family goals for 2021. My children always ask for suggestions when we set annual goals. One of the suggestions I'll offer this year is a monthly book challenge and rewards for completing it. The children also contribute ideas for our family goals and we value their input.

When setting your goals, remember to make them SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely.

5. Play Games
Charades. Board games. Rhythm games, such as "Oh Pass the Shoe" which we plan to teach to our children this week. Hide and Go Seek in the dark. Hide the Thimble making all levels of the house fair game to hide the object in. Musical chairs. Occupation. Swat. 

6. The Ball
In advance, make a basketball-sized ball by wrapping lots of prizes in layers of plastic wrap. Note: one year, the ball sat in a hot car for a few hours and the layers shrank, making them particularly challenging to unwrap. I'm not advocating that step, but it did add new levels of desperate energy to the game, even in adults. 

To play, participants sit in a circle around a table with the ball in the middle. Everyone takes turn rolling a die. As soon as someone rolls a six, the game begins. The one who rolled the six begins unwrapping the layers of the ball as fast as possible, keeping any prize he uncovers. Meanwhile, the person beside him rolls the dice on high speed and can grab the ball as soon as he gets a six. Players are not allowed to gouge into multiple layers or use tools of any kind. The plastic needs to be unwrapped layer by layer. 

Prizes in the ball can be anything from breath mints and candy to larger items like garden gloves or money. The core of the ball usually highest in value. 

7. Feed the Fun
Snacks, of course. Baked Brie with crackers. Nuts and chocolates. Flavored popcorn. Let your children help plan the snack.

8. Time Capsule
Family time capsules intrigue me, but I can't get past the idea of needing to wait years and years to reopen them. If you don't mind the suspense, fill a capsule with items significant to your family in 2020. Each family member contributes something for the capsule. Then package it up and put it out of sight until the agreed upon date when it can be opened. 

A variation to the time capsule is to do a Memory Jar this coming year, an idea I found here. Get a large glass container and fill the jar throughout the year with mementos of significant events or other keepsakes. If we would have done a Memory Jar in 2020, I would have dropped in things like a face mask, my son's hospital band, an article about the election, a ticket stub from Strasburg's train, and one of my 3-year-old's pocket knives (any twig with a point). The jar is never off-limits, so if you add something prematurely like a game piece, you can retrieve it without breaking a contract. Keep the jar forever, giving your posterity a container of tangible memories. 

9. Add Some Sparkle
As a family with young children, I do not promise we will stay up until midnight. But even if we decide, for sanity's sake, to turn in early, we will light our sparklers and share sparkling grape juice at the end of the party. 

Apparently I wasn't the only one who thought putting children to bed before midnight was acceptable:

Her next comment was, 
"And put them to bed around 8 or 9."

10. Slumber Party
Gather your gear and sleep in the living room as a family. We traditionally do this for every birthday and I'm working up my courage to suggest it for New Year's Eve as well. One of my hesitations is that the hardwood gets more unforgiving every time. The other hesitation is that we had two short nights last week and it has taken our youngest a few days to restore his good humor. I might leave this idea for you, at least this year. 

However you choose to observe the holiday, I trust it will include meaningful family times and create happy memories. May you enter 2021 with faith in God, peace in your heart, and hope for tomorrow. 

Shades of Summer

Enough tomatoes from our own garden to 
can all the tomato products I need.

Peaches from the neighbor's orchard, 33 quarts of them.

Yellow pear tomatoes from a plant that became the largest 
ever grown in our history of gardening. It completely overwhelmed
its allotted spot--and the gardeners. Sadly, we couldn't keep up.
I hate having produce rot in the garden, so I uprooted the plant.

43 quarts of beans, and that's after missing
two weeks of picking them while we were in Indiana

Unbelievable amount of peppers from 4 plants. 
With a garden that produces well, I can almost
understand why some people say they enjoy
gardening--almost, but not quite.

One of my summer's best bargains--boots he can
put on himself. And take off. And put on. And take off...

Organic blueberries picked in Indiana with Mom. 
"Just until the children get tired of it," she said. 
I think the boys lasted 14 minutes but chivalrously
hung out with us until we each had three inches
of berries in our buckets. Delish!

National Aviation Day

After a five year break, John is back "boring holes in the sky," as he says. Yesterday Tyler was able to go with him for the first time since John's pilot's license is renewed. 

 

In the meantime, I was making supper and checked my Find My Friend app to see if my men were on their way home. They weren't. They were lined up with the runway, ready to land. 

They didn't fly yesterday because of National Aviation Day, but what a great way to celebrate it. And what a great way to end summer. Today marks our first day of school. 

The Garden is In

      In the Beginning, God created gardens. And then He cursed them as a punishment for man’s outright disobedience. 

      Curse notwithstanding, one of John’s former co-teachers still believes that “the nearest place to heaven on earth is in a garden. After all, that is where God walked with Adam.”

      Apparently my veggies think so, too, and not because they are partial to their environment. They view my garden as their Gateway to Heaven and step directly from their mulched beds into Veggie Paradise without so much as a pause in my kitchen.

      But I disagree with John’s co-teacher and my veggies. I think gardens are the brown of life. The hard work. The blistering toil. The sweaty brow. I came into marriage thinking all I needed to do to grow things was lovingly tuck a few seeds into their earthen bed like my mom did, till them a few times like my dad did and watch them produce enough to fill an entire wall with canning jars in the fall.  Wrong. We till and mulch and coddle and water like all good gardeners do. And the sweet potato plot offered enough emaciated tubers to satisfy two adults and one potato-hating toddler with a single meal of potatoes. 

      Our tomatoes died off completely, so I gave them a final withering glare and shelled out five dollars to purchase all the tomatoes I needed for the winter.

      “Five dollars!” John said, impressed with my frugal purchase. “We can’t grow tomatoes for five dollars.”

      “We can’t grow them period,” I said darkly, remembering the graveyard plot out back. 

      “If you didn’t like to garden, I would suggest we skip one altogether.” He sounded resolute, like he was ready to throw down his hoe if I didn’t find gardening therapeu--

      Wait. Did he think I liked gardening? I took it as a compliment. If he thought I enjoyed a dreaded task after years of working in it together, it must be a sign I’m maturing. At long last.*    

     The rest of the story is that we have not gardened since that conversation. In the meantime, our son grew up enough to want to grow things, a desire neither of his parents understand. Yet what can we do? If he wanted to grow exotic birds, say, I would feel justified in saying no. But gardening? We have the plot and need the produce, so we agreed to try it again. 

      Ironically, the first seeds we acquired for the garden were Job's Tears, a gift from the neighbor. I couldn't decide if planting tears is a fitting choice for people like us, or if planting tears means we have sown them all and will reap in joy. 

The center of Job's Tears can be removed and the shell can be used as beads.

      We planted the garden last night. The children thought gardening was wonderful. I hope they feel the same way in August. 

*This was the introduction for my article "The Sanctified Pursuit of Pleasure," printed in Daughters of Promise magazine, May & June 2015 

A Mother's Worship

When prayer and praise

pervade His sanctuary,

my voice unites with others

(or chokes up completely)

in worship.

I believe 
that,

amid the swelling song
of a multitude,

God sees my soul 
reaching up, 
alive with longing.

My declaration of His greatness

confesses my smallness. 

By this, 
I worship.

When noise and duty
hem me in,

and small hands jerk my dress

while someone calls, "Mom!"

above incessant crying,

I turn from frying onions

and trip over playthings--

I feel no swell of worship
and offer no eloquent praise.

I only whisper,

“Lord, help me.”

I believe 
that,

amid the cacophony 

in my kitchen cathedral,

God sees my soul 
reaching up,
alive with longing.

My desperate, 
“Lord, help me,”

declares His greatness

and admits my smallness.

By this, 
I worship.
--Sara Nolt 

Inspiration for this poem came through Joylynn Esh who said, "One day a Canaanite woman fell at Jesus' feet and said, 'Lord, help me.' It was her form of worship." I'm still blessed, Joylynn. Thanks.

Coronaviries

From Cristmus to April 28 corona has been here. It is getting worse and worse. Sometimes I feel so borde that I ask Riley (who is ongly 2 years old) "What shall we play?" 

He sais, "Um."

Legos is something comeforting because there legs and arms move. But the thing is there's no friends

only Tyler and Riley. 

--Sophia Nolt, age 7 (unedited and unabridged)

Here's hoping that Lancaster County will soon be released from the stay-at-home order, which we have been honoring. 

Everything Is Funnier After You've Stayed at Home For a Solid Month. Even Husbands.

Tonight on the table, I saw my copy of the Homeschoolers' Friend,* freshly arrived. "John rarely sees my work in print," I thought. "I'll show him this time."

I had written an article about Roald Amundsen, Robert Scott, and their race to the South Pole. John would be interested in their story. "Here," I said, handing him the open magazine. "Maybe you would like to see something of mine after it is published." 

I stood at his elbow and began skim-reading the article, as I supposed he was doing. 

He wasn't.

"Will you look at that!" he said, assuming a fake Southern accent. "They printed the wrong picture. That doesn't look like you at all." 

I'll take it as a compliment (no offense to Amundsen), and I will continue showing John my work before it reaches the illustrators. 

Unless, of course, we are in quarantine and I'm low on laughs. 

*Homeschoolers' Friend is a magazine for homeschooling families, published by Christian Light four times per year. 

Guest Post: Just Stand Back Up

My Sarah girl had quite the six-year-old philosophy going on this afternoon. She asked if I'd like to come to her singing show which would include "some thoughts."

After singing a few songs, Sarah said: 

"So. Life is like a game, and Jesus is the goalie. 

And Satan has the ball sometimes, and he tries to throw the ball and knock us down. 

And Jesus blocks the ball. 

But sometimes Satan knocks us down and we get confused. 

But then we just get right back up and stand for Jesus. 

And if we stand up often enough, Satan just leaves us alone after a while." 

I sat there, astonished by the simple philosophy coming from her beautiful, sincere heart. "Where did you hear about this?" I asked.

"Nowhere. It's just how I think it is. Is it that way, Mom?"

The illustration she shared is a little too real for me personally, too real for all that's happening around us to pass it off as six-year-old rambling. Sometimes it really does seem Satan has the ball and is doing his best to score a goal.

But. The Goalie.

That's a force Satan can't mess with and win! My choice to stand right up back up for Jesus and just do the right thing determines my victory in so many places of this game.

It's that simple, friends. Just stand right back up for Jesus. Trust Him to block those scores the enemy is trying to make.

We are on the winning team. 

Vera Smoker is a lover of Jesus, authenticity, and good cups of coffee with friends. Her delight is to make their home a warm, welcoming place for her husband of almost eight years and their two children. Hobbies outside of homeschooling include cooking, making flowerbeds delightful, camping, hiking, and all other things outdoor with family and friends. 

National One Cent Day 2020

One of my children's favorite national holidays is National One Cent Day. Last year, they earned pennies throughout their school day for things like neat writing, diligence, and improved scores. I put prices on everything in my rewards tote and they had fun shopping with their pennies at my "yard sale."

This year, National One Cent Day fell at a time when my rewards box was empty, so I created Mom's Store.

Mom's Store

--Stay up past bedtime $.10

--Dessert for supper $.10

--Eyewitness space packet $.08

--Do a craft $.05

--Do a science experiment $.05

--Get a printed coloring page $.04

--Eat a mint $.02

I made a second list to help them earn more money than neat writing can buy them:

Job Chart

--Wash dishes $.02

--Set Table $.01

--Clear Table $.01

--Wash leaves of plant $.02

--Pick up toys $.02

--Sweep floors $.03

--Wash stairwell wall $.02

--Do Math Brain* 5x $.05

*Math Brain is an electronic flashcard game.

The children loved my store and told me this was their favorite day of the week. Meanwhile, my entire afternoon was spent on the run. They kept me busy finding science experiments and crafts, sourcing supplies from around the house, helping one child make a paper machê globe while the other needing continual oversight to make a camera case on my sewing machine. I had dessert in the oven, dishes piled high, and a child at my elbow asking, "Mom, is there any way I can please earn three more pennies?" 

I plan to do this again next year, but being wiser and more experienced, my store prices are going to double. I want my children to have fun and earn a reward (notice the singular tense), but they don't need to buy out the store. 

It so happened that National One Cent Day landed on April 1, the day we planned to have a Daffy Dinner with some friends. When our friends couldn't come because of a stay-at-home order, I promised the children we would do the meal anyway, just with us. John came home from the office in time to see the children set his spot at the table with a large kettle for a plate, a gravy pitcher for a cup, and a ladle as a spoon. Good sport that he is, he played along with us and helped make it a fun meal.

Griddle plate, corn handle fork,
spaghetti keeper cup

9x13 plate, baby spoon/fork, gravy shaker cup

Serving bowl plate, baby fork/serving spoon,
quart jar for a cup

After my Overly Ambitious day, I was relieved to see that the next national day I planned to celebrate was National Peanut Butter and Jelly Day. You can't get easier than that.

Bonus picture:  As I typed this post, the robot and sign were placed at my elbow. This is what you get when a ten-year-old boy has been on the property for three weeks solid.

Fearless

Once, Jesus got into a boat with some of His followers. As they crossed a lake, they were caught in a sudden and ferocious storm. The Greek words Matthew used to describe the storm are megas seismos. Even without a history of Greek, I can follow the terminology. Megas is big. Very big. Seismic activity describes earthquakes. From what I could find, seismos is used thirteen other times in the New Testament and always translated earthquake. This was massive storm, big enough to unnerve seasoned fishermen.

Terrified, the disciples woke Jesus, most likely shouted to be heard above the noise of the waves and wind, and said, "Master, we are going to die!"

Jesus replied, "Why are you afraid?" 

Indeed. In the middle of a megas seismos storm, in a little boat, with water sweeping over the sides, with the crashing of the waves and the howling of the wind, with their very lives threatened. The Master was there and that made all the difference. 

Today, amid a tsunami of misinformation, scary statistics, canceled events, quarantines, and a worldwide crisis, Jesus asks, "Why are you afraid?"

Indeed. The Master is still with us and able to calm the storm. It isn't the storm we need to be afraid of. "This isn't eternal," my friend Sheryl Zeiset said. "God help us to fear the things that lethargize the soul more than that which can kill the body." 

Lift your eyes above the waves today, zero in on Jesus, and be fearless.

Picture sourced from Pixabay

C. S. Lewis Weighs In on the Coronavirus

Stores are emptied of hand sanitizer and toilet paper. Schools are closed. Events are canceled. Memes are made. Coronavirus is making the kind of history our great-grandchildren will read about in textbooks someday. 

I respect the warnings of our authorities and agree with taking precautions to protect the elderly and immunocompromised. But I also appreciate the balanced views Christians have been presenting, of quarantines providing quality family times, of God using this crisis to shake our view of normal into His view of normal.

Many years ago, C.S. Lewis wrote about living in uncertain days, and his words still hold truth for us--especially if his pint refers to a latte. I know this quote has been circulating recently, but I want to share it here in case you haven't seen it. 

In one way we think a great deal too much of the atomic bomb. “How are we to live in an atomic age?” I am tempted to reply: “Why, as you would have lived in the sixteenth century when the plague visited London almost every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking age when raiders from Scandinavia might land and cut your throat any night; or indeed, as you are already living in an age of cancer, an age of syphilis, an age of paralysis, an age of air raids, an age of railway accidents, an age of motor accidents.”

In other words, do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation. Believe me, dear sir or madam, you and all whom you love were already sentenced to death before the atomic bomb was invented: and quite a high percentage of us were going to die in unpleasant ways. We had, indeed, one very great advantage over our ancestors—anesthetics; but we have that still. It is perfectly ridiculous to go about whimpering and drawing long faces because the scientists have added one more chance of painful and premature death to a world which already bristled with such chances and in which death itself was not a chance at all, but a certainty.

This is the first point to be made: and the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds.

— “On Living in an Atomic Age” (1948)  

Photo sourced from Pixabay

Repetition's Value

Life is a circle.

I haven’t kept track how many

times I have washed the same dishes or

mopped the same floors or laundered the same

clothes. I only know that I often wield my dishrag or

mop and almost daily I cram piles of dirty duds into my

hungry machine. Much of life as a stay-at-home mom feels

repetitive. Today I listened to my second grader recite identical

passages her brother memorized two years ago. Another child is

watching, biding his time until he is big enough to quote Beatitudes

and portions of the Psalms. I teach him the same lessons I instilled in
his siblings: Colors. Numbers. Please. Thanks. Kindness. Obedience.

I could find these endless cycles depressing. Empty or meaningless.

But then I remember that God does the same things, repeatedly.

His promise hangs on repetition: As long as earth remains, day

And night, snow and heat, summer and winter will continue.

Perhaps God created cycles to showcase His promises

and His dependable, enduring, stable character.

My cyclical life becomes my daily hint

of God Himself.

Snowmen for Lunch

In planning our snow-themed lunch, I looked on Pinterest for ideas and quickly decided I was out of my element. As a busy mama with limited time and abilities, our lunch needed to be Sara-friendly, meaning something that didn't demand much time, attention, or food artsy skills. 

Last year's craft became
this year's decor

I used to dream of doing a blue, white, and silver snowman-themed meal with food served from footed plates and with white lights and sparkly snowflake garlands for decor. But as the years passed, my dreams melted, and I finally purged my collection of blue plates when I needed elbow room and storage space more than I needed blue plates. So when a snowman lunch finally happened, it was a gaudy collide of color which was probably more fun for children anyway. 

Tiny red cups by the fork held
snowmen-shaped candies

A few cute signs made simple foods fit our theme.  

These are peanuts, by the way. I don't
purposely feed six children
chocolate covered coffee beans.

We invited friends to join us for lunch, and Gail brought darling snowman fruit kabobs, served in a hill of snow. 

I chose snowman-shaped pizzas as our main course and felt smart for substituting Alfredo sauce for pizza sauce. No bleeding snowmen for me! The crusts were cut from tortillas, the noses were wedges of pepperoni, and buttons and eyes were circles of olives.

After lunch, we made snowmen luminaries with Gail's endless craft supplies and excellent tutelage.

Isn't he snow cute?

Even the mess is artsy. I love it. 

Only one snowman has its candle lit
 in this picture but each one has a
battery operated tea light.

We enjoyed our snow-themed afternoon enough to do it again sometime. I can see my future self opening Pinterest just long enough to remember the reasons we stick to simplicity around here. Likely, I'll ask some friends to join us, tapping in on their creativity and energy. We will go away, like we did this year, warmed by friendship and snow-themed memories. 

What I Learned When I Read the Bible Chronologically in One Year

Words by Marlene Ruth Brubacher and posted with her permission. Image sourced from Pixabay.

In 2019, I decided that The Time Had Come to strike out alone for the far shore. My quest: to finally read the Bible through in one year. And to read it chronologically, following this plan I found online.

I did it.

Yes, sometimes I fell behind. It was a stiff schedule, and took time and determination. I had given my aunt Katherine permission to check up on me throughout the year; she didn’t often, but the accountability kept me going.

What did I learn?

I leaned I was dreadfully lazy. In the beginning of the year, reading three or four chapters a day sounded overwhelming. It wasn’t; I just had to grow some muscle. *

I learned that I was woefully ignorant about Biblical context. I thought I knew that you must always read surrounding verses. But there is a significant difference between studying Ephesians 2:14 in the context on verses 1-22, or reading the book of Ephesians in one gulp.

I learned that I was woefully ignorant about Biblical chronology. It’s why I had chosen that challenge, of course, but I lacked a big-picture view. At last, I feel like I understand how all the kings and prophets fit together, and where the book of Acts and the different epistles correlate.

I learned that the inexhaustible Bible is perfectly suited for a year’s reflections. I started on January 1, crisp and clean, and the Book opened with “In the beginning, God…”; I ended the eve of December 31, the end of the decade, with trumpets and glory and honour, with “Even so come, Lord Jesus”.

Will I do it again?

I hope so. Not this year; I’m ready for a different program. But someday I hope to repeat the challenge, the stretching, the growing. We’re poised at the brink of a new decade, and despite all the clever quips about 20/20 Vision, nothing will clear our sight like immersion in the Word.

*This is my personal testimony; I am not trying to shame anyone else. If you are an overwhelmed mom of five preschoolers, please know that as I have peace with God and with my fellowmen I am not trying to burden you with one more task. He sees you reaching for Him in the swirl of diapers and dishrags, and He meets you there.  

Meet the author: Marlene Ruth Brubacher lives among the mines and pines of northwestern ON where winters bring -45 C, and summers bring loons' yodels on sparkling lakes. She is a cleaner, baker, writer, and editor who thrives on coffee, poetry, and global friendships.