Chalking the Front Door & Blessing Your Visitors

Noel is leaving us, Sad it is to tell, But he will come again, Adieu, Noel.
 
His wife and his children Weep as they go. On a gray horse,
They ride through the snow.
The kings ride away In the snow and the rain, After twelve months, We shall see them again.
 
~French Epiphany Carol
 
One of my favorite Epiphany traditions is "chalking" the front door which symbolically welcomes the New Year into our home & offers luck and blessings to all who enter through it.  Rooted in a tradition called "first footing" that is common through Germany & Austria, on the Feast of the Magi where a priest would go throughout town to invited homes chalking the doors & saying prayers, it's a simple & fun activity for your family.
 
All you need is chalk, a front door & your imagination.  Involve your family & friends!  On the lintel (over the top of the door), chalk the first two number of the year (2 0 ).  Then you'll chalk C,M,B which represents the folkloric names of the three magi: Caspar, Melchior & Balthasar.  Then complete the year with the last two numbers. (1 2).  We generally then say a short prayer asking for health, peace, and love for all who enter the house in the coming year.  You can draw other fun symbols on the lintel as well (stars, moons, suns, swirls, whatever!).  The longer the chalk remains on the lintel, the luckier your year!  At our house, the lintel is under a covered porch so it would stay there all year if we didn't erase it.  We generally give it until Fat Tuesday & then unceremoniously erase it!
 
If you're interested in a more religious approach to the door, you can find a fully detailed liturgical approach here.

Epiphany & A Farewell to Noel

Twelfth Night Dinner Welcomes the Three Kings & Says Farewell to Christmastide

In my home growing up, Epiphany (January 6) signaled the end of the Christmas season.  Because I went to Catholic school, there was probably mass attendance, although I have no strong memories of that.  What I do remember is the emptiness & ordinariness of the house once the decorations were down, the lack of pine smell in the air, and the decided return to "normal" time.  Of course, we were headed back to school & jumping into all the things that January and February had on their calendars so I forged ahead, never looking back.

As an adult, I've been more melancholy about the end of the winter holiday season.  I love the glistening, glittering, rich sights, sounds, and smells of all that the month of December brings us & I've sought to extend it.  I began adhering to a Twelve Days of Christmas schedule several years ago; I use the time between Christmas & Epiphany to reflect on the year past & dream about the year to come.  I'm slow to put away the decorations, ferreting them into boxes only a bit at a time over the twelve days.

I am blessed to have an amazing group of friends who support my love for tradition & ritual who joyfully join me in celebrating Epiphany each year; we chalk the front door to welcome the three kings and provide luck for all who will enter during the year, wassail the apple tree in the backyard in hopes of a fruitful harvest, sing madrigals & take the ornaments from the tree.  Visiting family members and new friends have joined in through the years, all reveling in the conclusion of Christmastide.  When the night concludes, we are truly & honestly ready to reenter "real" time.

Tomorrow we will do so again & invite you to do so as well.  If you have already taken Christmas down, celebrate with a candle & a carol--Here We Come A-Wassailing is very appropriate!

New Year, New Beginnings

Welcome 2012!  The new year brings us a chance to reinvent ourselves, to get back on our neglected horses or find new steeds altogether, to forge a different path or set our feet back on a trail we had strayed away from in our busy lives. We have an opportunity in the early days of a newly minted year to look at our undertakings with fresh eyes and decide what works for us, what has ceased to be useful and what new frontiers we would like to explore.

It is at this crossroad between old and new that I now sit.  Rooted in Traditions sprang up new and not yet fully formed in 2011, grown from my passion for traditions and my fervent belief that, in spite of all the access & options our technology-packed lives offer us, we are missing a vital connection to the things that really matter.  Rituals, ceremonies, collective memories and links to the year bind us together as people; those traditions that spark fond recollections in us as the clock speeds by unite us to all the ancestors who went before us & all who will come after us.

This year, I am rededicating myself to greater dissemination of those traditions: ideas, historical trivia, videos and easy-to-implement rituals that you can adapt for your own family.  I look forward to hearing about your family traditions & memories that you carry through your life.