5 Simple Ways A Homebody Savors the Winter Season

If you're looking for a homemaker's guide to creating a rich, slow, and simple winter season through feasting, celebrating, art, and re-orienting hearts to the hope of Christ, this is for you.

Last month, I wrote about how exhausted I felt after a seemingly endless summer of enduring with hope the hard and holy work of growing with God.

And while I know the Lord is always doing a good and might work in us, I have sensed a slowness that has begun to ease my soul and slow my breath. The leaves, once yellow and brilliant red, are finally beginning to fall, leaving behind bare branches that stretch across an endless blue sky. The morning air has a bite to it, that usually signals the shaking off of sweaters and gathering of blankets.

New rhythms are beginning to emerge, and with them, new delights to be savored. If you’re a homemaker, homebody, or homeschooler, I think you’ll particularly love this post. I have a part two coming since I couldn’t possibly fit all my favorite seasonal delights in one post.

1. Hang Heart-Orienting Art

Now, maybe I’m an overly sentimental person, but there’s something special to me about being elbow-deep in a mixing bowl and glancing up at the painting in our kitchen of a young mother gently tending to both her children and her chores. Her face was serene, yet her arms laden with work. I snagged it for $12 at an estate sale, yet it has reminded me each day of the liturgical nature of the life I lovingly created: tending to children, to bread, to dishes, to laundry, to friends, and to plants. And instead of choosing to wallow in work that is never quite done, I’m reminded of the joy it is to have tiny hands to hold, fresh bread from the oven, and friendships to enjoy.

So each season, I think about the feelings I want to evoke in my home: beautiful depictions of the Nativity and birth of Christ in the Advent season to reflect on our hopeful waiting of our King, or lush autumnal landscapes in the fall to mark the closing of one season and the arrival of the next.

I search for free art prints from famous museums at Useum.Org, download them, and print 8x10 photographs at my local Walgreens (they almost always have a discount code) to cheaply switch out art throughout the year. I chose a variety of paintings depicting the story of Jesus’ birth including the one below!

Make It Your Own

• Display Christmas cards around your home as a reminder to pray for those who sent them to you.

• Commission your children (your own, family members, or friends’ kids!) to create art for your home.

• Scour thrift stores, estate sales, or antique stores for beautiful, yet affordable vintage art.

• Use an online watercolor class (I loved Brighter Day Press Winter & Christmas Watercolor Class) to try your hand at a new skill and make something meaningful for your home.

Adoration of the Shepherds by Nicolaes Maes (1660)

2. Feast by the Fireplace

A simple, easy tradition my family and I started when my son was very small, was laying a blanket in front of the fireplace and creating simple charcuterie boards (meat, cheese, fruit, crackers, chocolate, and nuts) and gathering in to read from J.R.R. Tolkien’s Letters from Father Christmas.

Throughout the winter season, simply moving your dinner to a soft blanket on the floor, turning on the fireplace (or a YouTube fireplace if you don’t have one!), and calling it a “fireplace feast,” brings a bit of magic and delight to dreary and drafty winter days. This year, I want to add in the new beautifully illustrated Christmas at Hogwarts picture book to our reading!

Make It Your Own

• Create a theme for your Fireplace Feast, such as a shepherd’s dinner while recounting the nativity story, a green-themed dinner while watching or reading How The Grinch Stole Christmas, or a favorite things dinner where you feast on your family’s favorite snacks.

• If you don’t have a fireplace (or have little hands that may be a bit too curious), try having dinner next to the soft glow of a lit Christmas tree. My son affectionately calls these “Christmas Tree Picnics.”

• If dinner doesn’t work for your family, try a special snack before bed with a stack of cozy Christmas books or morning hot chocolate, while warming up in front of the fire!

3. Make a Seasonal Soundtrack

I have this vivid memory of driving through the winding, wooded roads to my grandparent’s house in rural Indiana as a little girl, belting out “Jingle Bell Rock” as my grandpa enthusiastically sang along and thumped the steering wheel.

Memories of Christmas growing up is a vivid blur of standing on squeaky bleachers at school Christmas concerts, ripping through wrapping paper on Christmas morning, and piling into my grandparent’s SUV, usually squished in with a cousin or two, to see our town’s drive-thru light display.

Yet, somehow the nostalgia is tinged with the same handful of Christmas songs I remember playing through car speakers or sung in our little country church. Almost thirty years later, when I hear “Jingle Bell Rock,” I’m jolted back in time to a rumbling black pick-up truck that’s winding through the rural Midwestern countryside. What’s that song for you? Take a few moments this season to create your own seasonal soundtrack that you play while running errands or gathering for a meal.

Make It Your Own

• As a family, try picking a new hymn to memorize together such as Joy to the World, The First Noel, or In the Bleak Mid-Winter.

• Make seasonal playlists for different moods: upbeat Christmas songs for running errands, soft hymns for meal times or rest times, or nostalgic favorites for Christmas traditions.

• Every year, you can usually find a local church that hosts a free concert of Handel’s Messiah, which is a great way to anchor your family in the tradition of creating a seasonal soundtrack.

4. Create Something Cozy or Beautiful

Recently, (like many of you, I’m sure) I’ve put in a concentrated effort to lower my screen time and return my gaze from the tiny, curated squares of my friends and onto the real, beautiful life in front of me. Instead of reaching for the siren call of social media, I picked up a new hobby instead: embroidery! My friend and I took an embroidery class together and since then I’ve been hooked. It’s such an easy way to keep my hands and mind engaged, while also creating something beautiful.

A simple way to savor the winter season is to use your extra time indoors, curled on the couch, to create something beautiful or useful, especially if it’s reflective of the season.

Make It Your Own

• Try making this super-easy, beginner-friendly blanket, using only your hands and chunky yarn!

• Each year, Christian embroidery company Abide Co. does an advent stitch-along with daily tutorial videos to walk you through the process. It’s a slow, simple way to meditate on Scripture and the hope to come, while also creating meaningful in the process.

• If you aren’t super crafty, try hosting a craft night with friends! You’d be surprised at the skills your friends have. When I look around my group of friends I have people who are sourdough experts, sew their clothes, embroider gifts, crochet stuffed animals, watercolor gorgeous illustrations, and are gifted interior decorators.

• Try making handmade gifts for Christmas this year! A friend of mine once gifted me homemade vanilla extract and another created beautiful ornaments with my children’s photos! Here’s a huge list of 120 ideas from The Pioneer Woman to get you started!

5. Eat Seasonally

I’ll be honest with you. I wasn’t convinced about eating seasonal foods until I had my first real strawberry. Each spring, my family and I haul ourselves to a nearby organic farm, where tiny red-tinged hands grab plump red strawberries from an open field. Dragging our baskets back to the van, we snack on the sweet fruits that were warmed by the spring sun. These strawberries are fresh off the vine, and I left convinced that any other strawberry I had, with its white inside and watery taste, was merely an offensive imposter.

The first of our trips to the Strawberry farm convinced me to lean into eating more seasonally and locally, when possible. Luckily, we live in North Carolina and we are surrounded by incredible farming communities. This summer, I challenged myself to pick up a vegetable I haven’t tried before and to add it to our family meals. There were some favorites, and some flops, but I was proud of ourselves for stepping outside our comfort zone.

Make It Your Own

• Use the free Seasonal Food Guide to look up which foods are in-season near you! Try incorporating just one into your weekly meals, especially if it’s one you don’t normally have.

• Look up new recipes to incorporate this season: warming soups, fresh bread, hearty breakfasts, or special holiday treats! My absolute favorite meal that feels like winter to me is Julia Child’s Beouf Bourginnon.

• Depending on where you live, there are usually restaurants that specialize in using locally-sourced food. Trying doing a Google search for your city or asking friends!

Let’s Chat!

Let’s chat in the comments about how you usher in the advent season and create a cozy, welcoming winter home. I’ve learned so much from this amazing, rich community of talented women and I’m looking forward to stealing some of your ideas and traditions!

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