Here are some ideas as presented by Pagan parents and grandparents;

 

When my children were small, we had activities on all of the traditional eight holidays (I work under the assumption that the more holidays the better, and don't stop to quibble about what's Norse and what's Celtic nor who did or might have done what).

 

On Imbolc we have a party, on the Spring Equinox we made and then threw Luck Eggs, on Bealtaine we went around with May baskets, on Midsummer we had a parade around the garden wearing flower crowns, on Lughnasadh we made grain crosses or wreaths, on the Autumnal Equinox we, as much as possible, had a dinner of home-grown foods, on Hallowe’en we (of course) carved pumpkins, and on Yule we made various home-made ornaments, generally re-using cards we had been sent.  And we had a glitter ritual, but it wasn't really an activity per se, it was a tiny ritual about spreading happiness.

 

The only really 'different' thing we made was luck eggs, and I happen to have saved a description of making them:

 

One of the things we did when my children were small is make luck eggs.  We had an entire tree of them, so I will describe the whole process.  One winter, I snowshoed all over the swamp through the brush and found a small tree with a birds' nest left in it (Note to beginning snow-shoers--always be careful to not fall over in deep snow!).  I plaster-of-Paris’d it into a pot, and the boys and I made a lot of leaves out of green tissue paper, pasted them on, put some small decorative eggs in the nest, and Matthew made

a bird out of construction paper for the branch above.  We saved it in the storage room and used it from year to year.

 

Then comes the egg part.  You blow out eggs--I don't make pinholes (it's too hard to blow) but I chip off little holes and break the egg yolk before blowing.  It goes much faster that way.  Then I rinse them out and let them dry.  I seal up the holes with tissue paper, putting confetti inside.  It's always tempting to use glitter, but if you use all paper then they are bio-degradable.  On the top seal, I glue in a paper loop so that they can hang from the branches of the tree.  Then we would put initials on each one, and draw (poorly, but children don't mind) a picture of something meaningful to the person the egg is for.  So even well before your children can draw, they can pick a symbol for themselves.

 

We always made a lot--for ourselves, the baby-sitter, expected visitors, friends, extended family members so the tree was always full and looked beautiful.

 

On the day we would take our eggs and troop outside, make a wish for the coming season, and fling our eggs against the side of the house in a satisfying burst of luck and confetti!

 

We made May baskets out of woven construction paper, flower crowns out of mainly daisies, grain constructs with great difficulty; grain weavings, wreaths and braids. 

 

(If you soak the grain overnight in the bathtub the projects go much easier- Ellen) 

 

Still not really an 'activity' but I could also mention that I follow a very folkloric Path and never let my children trick-r-treat on Hallowe’en. Several of the local organizations had parties on the Saturday closest to the day and I traded participation in those for staying home on the Eve.  We also had a rule that the costume elements had to be based on usable clothes-- orange sweatpants and shirts when they were pumpkins, a snowsuit as the basis for the astronaut, green-dyed long underwear for the alien, red

sweater for the cardinal….

 

We also carve runes into the pumpkin faces and have a warding ceremony then. I enjoy your input on the Celtic Nation, use your Druid's Herbal as a reference, and am looking forward to buying your book on Ogham trees in the future.

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Hope my input helps—Judith Crow