This post is about .... let me see.... 21 days late!
Yesterday I had the best New Year's Eve! I made ornaments, I cooked, I drove on ice - a solid sheet of ice that lasted about 2 miles, I went shopping, I set raisens on fire, drank champagne, had a spectacular fire to watch, did magic, saw faeries, toasted the moon, talked to my mom, spent time with my granddaughter, tromped around in the snow, got really really cold, lit candles, cleaned up my mess, I even took pictures!! ... what else... oh, and I took the christmas tree outside.
The only thing I didn't get to do that I wanted to do was take a long hot bath, and that was because I've had to leave the water dripping so the pipes won't freeze. I turned off what I thought was the hot water side so that I'd have hot water for the bath, but I accidentally turned off the cold water instead.
The original plan was for a New Year's Eve party. I was going to get pizza, pop, bourbon, and champagne. And we were going to do magic all night long. But then we had the blizzard of 2009, Michelle and her kids got sick, and it just didn't work out. So I made magic by myself... and it was so much fun!
First thing I did was make gingerbread men with holes in their bellies for a spell I'm starting today (New Years Day) and continuing with throughout the year. It's a spell for filling up the empty space in me with something other than food ... like light, love, laughter, magic, etc. I couldn't find a cookie cutter, so I cut the shapes out with a knife, and used cherrios to keep the belly hole from filling in. They look a little strange... here's a really small not very good picture of them.
Then, I made edible ornaments for the birds. It was so much easier than I thought it would be. And while I was making them, I was thinking about the fairies, and the birds, and the magic spells I had planned for later on, and next thing you know, I was in an incredibly good mood.
I took the Christmas Tree outside and hung the edible ornaments on it. What a beautiful day. The moon was rising as the sun was setting. Here's a picture of the tree outside. I know... the image is really small, and you can't really see it, but here it is anyway. The tree itself was one of my favorite things we did for our Yule celebration.
We did this cool thing of putting bells on it and making wishes. The idea was to say your wish into the bell and then the fairies would work on making that wish come true. Michelle and her kids came over, Saskia, James and Sydney were there, and we had a "yule" party and the wishes and the bells were the best part of the whole day. The kids really got into it, and the little tree looked so cute with all the bells hanging on it. The only other ornaments we had were a couple of short garlands made out of cheerios, and it was a seriously cute tree. I think it must have had some fairy glamour on it. Plus Michelle and I made that awesome star for the top of it... I know you can't see it in the picture... but trust me, it was awesome!
Anyway... I told the kids that I'd take the tree outside on New Years Eve and put more edible ornaments on it for the birds and the other little wild critters, and that the fairies would really like that.
While I was doing the tree, James came up and I got him started burning the burn pile. I figured with all the snow that we couldn't possibly start a grass fire, and probably nothing would even catch on fire, but it was worth a shot. And wow! Tbat fire turned out to be the most spectacularly magical thing of the evening. It just took off! Almost as if the fire spirits had been itching to get their hands on it all year long!
Up close, the fire was burning in an amazing array of colors. I found an image online that will give you an idea of how cool it was to watch from up close.
Later, having finished with the magic, I sat at the window and watched the fire. That's when I saw them. I saw the feary folk around that fire, and I saw the fire dancers, and the trapped energy within the burn pile traveling up to "heaven." Totally unexpected and cool. At first I thought it was James moving around the fire, but it wasn't. Then I thought it must be the neighbors dogs, but it wasn't them either. I saw shadows and silhouettes, and it was so magical and cool.
I took several different pictures of the fire. Some close up, others far away, and for some strange reason, I ended up with the same picture over and over in my camera... at first I was pretty annoyed, because not only did I only have the one image, it was really a small picture. And then I saw it, the faery dancing in the fire. It's very clearly a fire dancer! Really! I didn't even realize it until I was writing the post and uploading the pictures. Here, I'll show you the picture enlarged... can you see it?
I also did the snapdragon spell. That was interesting! I put raisens in a bowl, covered them with brandy, and set it on fire. I thought it would be way different then it was. It took several tries to get the bourbon to light, and then it just sort of hovered over the top of the raisens, a low blue, odd sort of flame. I made three wishes, and then ate all the rest of the raisen/brandy mixture. It was yummy!
Having done that, I got busy with the Once In A Blue Moon Spell. It was surprisingly difficult to come up with a total of 13 wishes. Interestingly enough, one of the wishes was to be able to actually see faeries... and it came true almost immediately.
So... that's what I did on New Years Eve!
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