All Year Round (Lifeways)

Healthy and delicious recipes, beautiful poetry, and great ideas centering around natural materials and family time. Wonderful for incorporating into seasonal holidays, celebrations, or family gatherings - memorable activities & flavors for kids of all ages. Varied selection of ideas and projects. A keeper!

I just got this book, so I have not had the chance to make any of the wonderful-looking crafts yet. But I love, love, love it! As an American, I find it charmingly quaint and British. And although the subtitle is "Christian calendar of celebrations," the authors give a nice treatment of the pre-Christian traditions from which they are derived, and point out the correlations between the Christian and pre-Christian celebrations. As a Christian with great respect for other traditions and paths, I found it quite refreshing that they lack the weird American fundamentalist propensity to deny (or occasionally acknowledge and vilify) the fact that so many of our holiday dates and customs were ripped off from the pagans. If you are Christian, you will enjoy this book's focus on the Christian holidays; if you're Pagan, ignore the Christian stuff and you'll enjoy (and be able to make good use of) the rest. If you are neither Christian nor Pagan, there are plenty of ideas that can be used for each season in general without being associated with any particular Christian/Pagan holiday.

I should note that this book is quite similar to Festivals Family and Food; but for only a couple dollars extra, you get about 50% more pages in this book. The two complement each other nicely, though, because I don't believe that many of the crafts are identical.

This is probably a lovely book, just beware that the title that was shipped to me was not the same as advertised on Amazon, or anywhere else that I have seen. The book that arrived was "All Year Round; Christian Calendar of Celebrations". So if, like me, you have no intentions of celebrating Christian holidays, then this is not the book for you.

I love, love, love this book. Little crafts and ideas for each season of the year. Such a great resource. It has really helped me make the transition into a more waldorf/natural lifestyle especially when it comes to holidays. I especially love the Christmas/advent celebration ideas. So wonderful. If you are going to buy one craft book, make this the one!

Great book with activities based on the seasons and holidays. Wonderful for the Waldorf homeschooling family!

Heather mama of 5