The year marches to an end and darkness holds her sway over the day. She chases away the sun and fills everything with cold. Hearts and hearths struggle as the winter deepens. But we are the HearthKeepers and we take the reign of darkness and cold and turn her into our handmaid of coziness and warmth. We are not afraid of the darkness and cold for we see how to use them and how to defeat them. We’ve done it over and over, going back down the line of other HearthKeepers behind us and training HearthKeepers coming up after us. We aren’t afraid of the darkness and the cold because we have light!

Back in our cross-quarter Samhain/Halloween episode, we talked about being prepared for winter with lamps. We’ve shared different lamps on our Instagram account submitted by fellow HearthKeepers. We want to have this attitude of shining a light out into the darkness in this darkest time of the year. Our tagline is Lighting the Way Back Home. Light is a huge part of homemaking. It’s easy in the spring and summer to have light in our shelters. It pours in all our windows with gusto and glory! Then the autumn comes and the days shorten. Darkness grows. No matter how many jack-o-lanterns we put candles in, the darkness grows. No matter how much thankfulness we practice, the darkness grows. And here we are at the Solstice, the shortest day of the year. Darkness has closed in.

Grim was the world and grey last night:
The moon and stars were fled,
The hall was dark without song or light,
The fires were fallen dead.
The wind in the trees was like to the sea,
And over the mountains’ teeth
It whistled bitter-cold and free,
As a sword leapt from its sheath.

The lord of snows upreared his head;
His mantle long and pale
Upon the bitter blast was spread
And hung o’er hill and dale.
The world was blind,
the boughs were bent,
All ways and paths were wild:
Then the veil of cloud apart was rent,
And here was born a Child.

The ancient dome of heaven sheer
Was pricked with distant light;
A star came shining white and clear
Alone above the night.
In the dale of dark in that hour of birth
One voice on a sudden sang:
Then all the bells in Heaven and Earth
Together at midnight rang.[1]

Light, HearthKeepers, light!

This is a time for us to shine heart to heart. Let’s fill our knitting circles (Instagram, FB, GroupMe) with lights!

Candles: Keeping fire as little pets is a wonderful way to warm rooms and souls. We can bring in tall tapers to add a little extra romantic ambiance to our day. Small tealight candles give us that beautiful flicker while lasting only a short time. Candles in jars provide an extra layer of safety and can be reused. Wide column candles add a sense of gravity and last a long time, plus they melt in unique ways. A plethora of scents are available in grocery stores, on sites like Etsy, and even unexpected places such as Cracker Barrel. Pick a signature scent or change it up every time. Beeswax candles are a beautiful way to go more natural. The bright yellow is a small slice of summer in the middle of winter.

Decorating our designated hearths (like we talked about in episode 2.2 Hearth Location) with candles can be a wonderful way to remember the brave women of the prairies or huts and hovels, whose only source of light was candlelight, yet they still carved out homes.

Candle-making is a fun craft, but it can also be frugal. How much wax have we tossed out because the wick got lost? This winter might be a good time to learn to reuse the wax left in the bottom of jars or in nubs on the fireplace. Or simply melt your remnants and reuse them over time in a small wax warmer.

Lamps: I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, adding lamps to my home did more to warm it than all the pillows and throws combined. Lamps are not a waste. They’re vital to the mental and emotional well-being of ourselves and our people. Especially this time of the year! Lamps can be thrifted, repaired, redesigned, painted, given new shades, and even picked up off the curb. We should look beyond the lamp's specifics to its potential. Maybe the color is all wrong but the shape is right. Maybe it’s dated but a funky new shade will bring it new life. We should collect lamps of all heights and sizes. We can put them in corners, stack books under them, and even put them on chairs. A good lamp should never be wasted.

Lamps are a fun way to add that “touch of ugly” to a room that takes it from perfect to approachable and livable for actual humans. If you find a lamp that you adore but it doesn’t go with your room, try it anyway. The dissonance might be exactly what your room needed. (Mine is a gold lamp with a velvet olive green shade. It is not my style, doesn’t go with my room, and I love it so much! It’s my favorite lamp.)

Also, for the love of all that is holy, pick warm bulbs. We’re not pushing out the darkness with our lamps if we then add more harsh blue light. Look for tinted bulbs in warm golds and browns.

Fairy Lights and Christmas Lights: String lights are a technology I can get behind. They create a fun, twinkling magic. Invest in them year-round. String them over mirrors and across bookshelves. Weave them between your wine bottles or bourbon collection. The glass makes them twinkle even more. Drape some around the window or wall over your kitchen sink. String them in trees and playrooms and under mantels. There is nowhere they can’t add ambiance. These little lights make life sweeter.

Hearthlight: We’re just about done with Christmas and facing the cold dark of January and February without the holiday busyness to warm them up. No decorated trees. No pops of gold and red. It’s easy to let the darkness win at this time because we’re tired out from all the festivities. That’s okay. We all need this slowing down before spring. It can be a healing time, but only if we lean into it and keep it warm and bright.

We do that first and foremost with our hearts. Our attitudes, our love for our people, and our love for our homes are our first layer of warmth. This is the season for more hugs, more soup, more thick socks, and more hot chocolate, not less. Let’s pour ourselves into being warm for our people.

Second, we spread the light from hearth to hearth. We should look for ways to encourage each other and lift each other up. Ladies, when you share and post and comment and listen and read and respond, you’re not just rewarding me, Sarah, and Rachel for the countless hours we pour into this group, you’re encouraging all of us to carry on, hang tough, keep our powder dry, and persist through the horrors. Why does this work? Because I realize I’m not alone. I’m not isolated. I’m not the only homemaker in the world. I am part of a rich and vibrant community and so are you even when we can’t be physically together.

Now, I’m in no way encouraging you to abandon your duties for an online life. Many of us have found the value of staying offline, shutting down notifications, and deleting apps. That’s good and wise. But we don’t want to go from one extreme to the other. We do want to be part of a community and find encouragement, conviction, and general edification in our work. We need each other to spur one another on. And we need all of us together to light the way back home for the coming generation, hearth to hearth. We want to encourage each other until our hearthlight shines into the darkness, rescuing other women from discouragement and disillusionment. So encourage and be encouraging, no matter how limited that has to be. Your sisters are with you, doing much the same work with the same love all over the world.

Let’s bravely face the dark, for we are the HearthKeepers!

“It may be that the night will close over us in the end, but I believe that morning will come again. Morning always grows out of the darkness, though maybe not for the people who saw the sun go down. We are the Lantern Bearers, my friend; for us to keep something burning, to carry what light we can forward into the darkness and the wind.”

Rosemary Sutcliff, The Lantern Bearers

[1] Noel by JRR Tolkien: This poem is wonderfully fun to read aloud, and it captures the Christmas Spirit beautifully. Go read it!

Yule: Overcoming Darkness with Light

Frugal Christmas