Candlemas Day and Making Snow Candles!

Today is Candlemas and also Groundhog's Day.  We had a big snowstorm last night, schools are closed and I'm pretty sure the Groundhog isn't coming out any time soon!!  

My Mindful Parenting E-Course is also coming to an end.  It was wonderful to spend 5 weeks writing and supporting a group of parents who are hoping to move through life more intentionally.  I found, as usual, that the universe constantly provides me with what I need to write about at the correct time.  This week, we are focusing on asking for help when we need it most, as well as reaching outside of our family lives to connect with our community and find the support we need.  

I have been lucky to find true community in the town I live in.  Becoming active in the schools and town on a deeper level has brought me together with some of the most wonderful people I've known, people who I now call close friends. 

Because of this connection, my children also benefit.  They meet familiar faces in their day to day lives at school and their sense of "family" extends far beyond our little home.  I'm so grateful to live where I live and can't believe it took me 15 years of living here to finally branch out and get to know

my neighbors and the rest of my town.  I encourage the rest of you to make the time to do the same.  

So today is Candlemas... how do you celebrate?

Candlemas and Groundhog's Day stem from the very ancient festival of Imbolc which is one of the four Celtic Fire Festivals.

The term "Candlemas" comes from a very old Christian custom of blessing the candles on this day.  It is the halfway point of Winter when we can look ahead to the warmer days of Spring that are on the way.

A fun way to celebrate this special day is to make candles together.  It is also customary to eat pancakes on this day - so maybe have a pancake dinner?  

Where I live with all this snow - it is a PERFECT day to make Snow Candles!!!  We made these last year and the girls loved it so much!  

Happy Candlemas to You!!

Snow Candles for Candlemas

This is something that I've wanted to try for a long time but never got around to it.  I wanted to think of a fun way to celebrate Candlemas and considering there is still snow on the ground, I thought this year would be the right time to give it a try.  

My problem was that I had absolutely no supplies.  I wanted to use natural wax but my options were limited at Michael's Craft Store.  They did, however, have soy wax so I gave it a try.

After melting the wax, we found an area with deep snow and made indentations in the snow with a canning jar.

I also found some amazing wicks at the craft store.  I do have wicks from beeswax candles but these were more sturdy and I figured I'd struggle a lot less with them as they stood upright already.  We wrapped our wicks around paintbrushes to the correct length of our holes. 

 After the wax was fully melted on the stove, I went and poured in the wax.  

To add a little color, the girls added some watercolor paints.  It really didn't add to the coloring of the wax as they expected but it was pretty and worked.  

OK, so here is my blogger truth.  These candles did NOT work out like I wanted.  I figured the depth of the hole would give us nice big candles but some of the wax seeped underneath which ended up giving us very short candles!!!!

Instead of getting discouraged, we clipped our wicks and put our candles in the snow.  They looked so beautiful when we lit them, we soon realized that maybe we didn't make a mistake at all. 

Maybe they were just right.  

If you have snow (or sand) near you and decide to give this activity a try, please share a link to it here in our comments section. 

Happy Candlemas!