Unboxing the Winter
Open up the Midwinter Founder box with me!
In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter, long ago.Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him, nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away when He comes to reign.
In the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ.Christina Rossetti, “A Christmas Carol” (1872)
Welcome! Whether you’re a longtime friend or a new kindred spirit here (I recommend visiting the Village Green to get your bearings), I’m delighted to be a companion to you through the liturgical year.
Pax+bonum, Kristin.
WINTRY DEPTHS
This past summer, I quietly began a new endeavor - an extension of my work in this online space, my goal in the new Founding membership has been to infuse tangible, artisanal, inspiring resources into members’ own varied lives. My hope is that each box would provide the embers to help support you as you integrate the liturgical calendar into your own home and your wider community - that each item would blend into the liturgical living patterns of your life and landscape, wherever you are.
Some of these items are chosen to help quietly support personal devotion through seasonal, liturgical living…and others are chosen with an eye toward extending our personal journey through sacred time, spreading it out toward our wider community.
All that to say…I put a lot of pondering and prayer into these packages, so I thought it would be fitting to share more about them with you!
December brought with it some truly harrowing weather for us in the Pacific Northwest: an ‘atmospheric river’ blew in, bringing us three floods in the period of just a couple of weeks. Although gathering the materials for the Winter Founder boxes and receiving shipments was a logistical challenge, those wintry barriers helped to bind together the beauty and memories of these boxes in such profound ways, and I hope that you can sense the camaraderie that made all of this possible!
These boxes were truly a team effort, an ecosystem of creativity and devotion that makes all of this possible.
Since we had so many floods in December, shipping these boxes out turned into quite the adventure. I packed them in batches in the wee loft of my studio, printed all their postage, bagged them up to keep them dry, and rowed them up to the hillside (where we park our vehicles during floods).
And, honestly, friends: I love this work. It’s an absolute privilege getting to dream up these collections and then bring these creations into your homes and lives!
UNPACKING THE BOX…
The theme that guided the 2025/2026 Winter box was WASSAIL…an ancient greeting (also an eponymous mulled cider) that comes from the Old English wes hál: “be well/healthy.”
Another facet of hál is wholeness, though: and this is what thematically flavored the midwinter box.
Each and every item in this box was made with such incredible care by artisans and small businesses, and they all deserve a highlight to give a sense of the layers within them.
BRASS MISTLETOE
By Claire Sibley of Anthology Farm / Washington
The lineage of mistletoe’s symbolism is ancient, but in the Middle Ages, it adapted Christian theology to a local (British) landscape. Though it has leaves that photosynthesize, mistletoe attaches its roots to other tree branches, drawing its nutrients from the parent tree…and this dynamic became infused with one of Jesus’ titles: Radix Jesse, the Root of Jesse. It’s a title that beautifully encapsulates Jesus’ divine royalty & his heritage as the fulfillment of prophetic kingship (Isaiah 11:1) - and as the sapling would spring up from the stump, the Medieval church saw mistletoe mysteriously appearing from its host tree.
For the winter box, my talented friend/neighbor Claire (fun fact: I designed her farm’s logo!) made a mistletoe sprig with brass and a freshwater pearl...she files and shapes each leaf, twisting each stem by hand. My hope is that this evergreen brass mistletoe would be a reminder of Radix Jesse all winter long...
Here’s how your mistletoe arrived to me, as soon as the floodwater had gone down enough: Claire brought this sweet handmade bundle to our porch, and it was personally inspected by our husky, of course (he approved).
LITURGICAL LIVING CARDS
By The Daily Grace Co. / Texas
As we entered into a new liturgical year this winter, I thought these Liturgical Living display cards may be helpful touchpoints through all the coming seasons - reminding us of the wholeness of Christ as told through the traditions of his Church’s calendar.
DGC’s liturgical year resources are such beautifully-simple, accessible, and invitational resources…lovely touchstones & reminders for those who are familiar with the calendar, and helpful starting points for those who are new to it. Getting to work with their team to get these cards to you was truly a treat!
WASSAIL CIDER SPICES
By Oliver Pluff & Co. / South Carolina
‘Wassail’ is both the greeting and the drink itself: mulled cider, spiced with cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger, enjoyed in company and once used to bless orchards.1 This packet will brew one gallon of wassail (with your chosen base of apple juice, etc.), and my hope is that it would inspire you to find a time this winter to gather with some friends and toast to each other’s - and your landscape’s - wholeness!
This Oliver Pluff & Co. pack of wassail spices is truly a thing of beauty: the spices are hand-blended and packaged, and they’ve thoughtfully included a little muslin bag for steeping.
Because of the flooding, receiving this shipment was a bit complicated - once I managed to make it off the farm, I had to have the delivery re-routed to a mail-drop. They’re worth all the effort, though, and are the very essence of winter cheer!
(I used some of these packets for our recent Plough Monday celebration, and the flavor was effervescent! Best of all, though, was getting to witness each and every guest pour a cup of wassail and take it, steaming, out to the orchard).
WINTER PRAYER
Hand-dipped 100% beeswax candles by Rainy Day Bees / Washington
Antique tree clips from Etsy / South Dakota
This season of darkness and colder temperatures provides so many unique challenges: here in the PNW, the gray is low and long. In the winter box, I sent a bag of goodies so that, from afar, we can all ‘gather’ in prayer, lighting a candle in the midst of darkness. Included in the Winter box are a vintage/antique candle clip, hand-dipped beeswax candle (hand-dipped by our friends/beekeepers Peter & AmyBeth), and mini slate.
Here’s the vision and the invitation in this prayer candle bag:
Write words, names, or draw a picture on your mini slate - anything you’d like to hold in prayerful light
Attach the candle clip to the slate
Pop a candle into the clip & light it - the prongs can bend to fit the taper snugly
I hope that, during these dark winter days, this provides some comforting light!
Because I was sourcing antique Christmas tree-clips, I had a box full of different sizes and shapes…but Peter and Claire (friend & maker-of-mistletoe, whom you met above!) counted every single size variation (bless them), and then Peter made different batches of candles to fit perfectly in each size (bless him).
And, again, the flood made it tough to get to the candles when I’d hoped to - but I rowed off the farm and drove out to Seattle to pick up the candles and say ‘hi’ to my favorite beekeepers!
Here’s a glimpse into Peter’s process of creating these hand-dipped candles:
ANTIQUE HYMNAL PAGE & HEARTHSTONE POST NEWSLETTER
I love rescuing old hymnals that are falling apart at the seams…a bit like a magpie, I keep a tub of ephemera for just the right use. For the winter boxes, I carefully selected each hymn from my pile of rescued pages, so that each of you would have something delicate and meaningful to greet you when opening the box.
The Hearthstone Post is another missive that appears in each box, too - with some hand-drawn artwork, meditations on the box’s theme, and more details/contact information for every item in the box.
(The cedar sprigs are clipped fresh from the wooded hillside here on the farm! Cedar is our most emblematic evergreen here in the Pacific Northwest).
These are just a few of the sweet faces and stories behind the Winter box: please know that, when you support as a Founder, you’re supporting these passionate creatives (and more). Thank you for making this ecosystem possible, dear friends.
Wishing you all the warmth & light that this chilly season reveals to us!
Pax et bonum,
Kristin
We just wassailed our orchard a couple weekends ago!
I treasure my mistletoe and it is hanging in my wardrobe where I see it each day as I dress.