Anniversaries of the Heart at Aroha Nui Montessori
Decorating the Tree
Firstly I need to give my acknowledgements to our good friend Kimberley Crisp for using the term “Anniversaries of the Heart”.
The end of the year is fast approaching and for many of us this means a variety of cultural celebrations. Here in Aotearoa/NZ many of us will be celebrating Christmas and we certainly will at Aroha Nui Montessori and Beyond.
Over the years I have reflected deeply on how we can give meaning to our celebrations.
Growing up, Christmas was special to me because it meant a family gathering at Nana and Grandad’s - there were certain foods that reached legendary status because they were grown by Grandad or made by Nana (garden peas, strawberries, pavlova, trifle and Belgian biscuits) and a Christmas meal isn’t complete without new potatoes from Ōamaru and cherries from Otago.
Gifts were shared and often hand made or heirlooms passed down - a new smocked dress, my mother dolls pram refurbished and complete with hand knitted panda twins.
Our Christmas stockings always contained an orange as a throwback to tradition and we children made decorations for the tree to sit with the traditional glass baubles and lights.
I remember Christmas as a special time, so naturally I wanted to bring this feeling to what we do at Aroha Nui Montessori. Following Montessori principles I also want to keep how we do what we do firmly rooted in reality for our littlest children.
What will we be doing?
We will decorate our environment - fairy lights, stars, window art and more…
We will have a Christmas tree for children to decorate. It will arrive early December for our end of year celebration (last year it was made from pinecones gathered from a local pine forest and we provided basket containing sprigs of pōhutukawa as the decorations) - it will be a sensorial experience and children will be free to decorate and rearrange it as they wish.
We will have Christmas books wrapped up as gifts and we will open one each day - to be read and many will be added to our book basket (coming soon to our shop is our guide of Christmas books that we read and recommend).
We will tweak some of our art materials - the collage papers will have a Christmasy theme, there will be some star, bauble and tree shaped paper that may be chosen alongside our regular offerings. (To be clear I do not mean templated Christmas crafts - see our video below for our “tweaks”).
We will have a celebration of our year - there will be songs, stories, intentions set/wishes made, food and coming together as family.
We will emphasise gratitude, community, giving, and sharing in traditions.
We are looking forward to the upcoming season - we are already planning our celebrations and experiences, books have been ordered from the library and gift making is in full swing.
Wishing you all joy in what ever way you will be marking the end of this year of 2025.
Aroha Nui
Carli
