The Festival Year in a Waldorf-Inspired Co-op, Season by Season

A Waldorf-inspired co-op can keep the festival year by choosing four to six festivals that are better with a crowd. Think of Michaelmas in the autumn, lanterns in November, the Advent spiral, and the maypole in spring. The quieter festivals stay at home with each family. Ask one family to lead each group festival. Spend the co-op mornings of the three weeks before getting ready, with the story, the song and the craft. On the day, every family brings one thing.

Why the festival year belongs in a co-op

A lantern walk with one family is lovely. A lantern walk with twelve children, all singing the same song in the dark, is something else. Some festivals need numbers: enough children for a maypole, enough voices for a round, enough hands to carry a dragon.

Waldorf schools know this. Cardiff Steiner School calls its festivals "beacons across the changing year", and describes them bringing parents, teachers, friends and family together around the children. At Shining Mountain Waldorf School in Colorado, parents serve snacks and hot cider and tend the fire on the night of the lantern walk. The festival year is often the part of Waldorf life that a family finds hardest to keep alone, and a co-op can carry it.

Our festival pages have the story, the songs, the crafts and a recipe for each festival. This article is about how a group shares them.

Which festivals suit a group

Choose the festivals where more people make the day better. Here's one way to sort them, for a group in the northern hemisphere.

Season	Better with the group	Usually kept at home
Autumn	Michaelmas (29 September), the harvest festival, the Martinmas lantern walk (11 November)
Winter	The Advent spiral, Candlemas candle dipping (2 February)	St Nicholas, Christmas, the winter solstice
Spring	May Day (1 May)	Easter morning, Whitsun
Summer	St John's fire (24 June)

A home festival can still show up at co-op in a small way. A St Nicholas story at circle, or Easter grass sown in a pot on the windowsill, costs the group nothing extra. The big day stays with each family.

Choose four to six

Every festival asks the families for preparation, time and often an evening. A small co-op usually does better with one or two a term, done well. One shape that works for many groups:

• Autumn term: Michaelmas and the lantern walk.
• Winter term: the Advent spiral, and Candlemas if you meet in February.
• Summer term: May Day, and St John's to close the year.

If your group meets only by the festivals, the same list becomes your calendar. How often a co-op should meet covers that shape.

The year, season by season

Autumn opens with courage. Michaelmas comes early in a northern autumn term, with a dragon story, dragon bread and a courage game outdoors. Our guide to Michaelmas with a co-op covers the group version. The harvest follows: each family brings something from a garden or a market for a shared table. By November the evenings are dark enough for the lantern walk, the one festival many co-ops keep if they keep no other. Children make lanterns on the co-op mornings before, and families walk together at dusk.

Winter turns inward. The Advent spiral is quiet and slow: each child walks a spiral of greenery to a candle at its center and lights their own. Davis Waldorf School in California keeps winter spirals in November and December. It needs a darkened room and a calm group, so it suits a co-op that has been together a few months. Candlemas, in early February, is a good co-op morning. Dipping beeswax candles takes time and patience, and a group can share one pot of wax.

Spring is for color and movement. May Day needs a pole, ribbons and enough children to dance it, which is exactly what a co-op has. Flower crowns can be woven that morning.

Summer closes the year. St John's is the festival of the midsummer fire. A small fire at a park or a family's garden, where fires are allowed, makes a good last gathering before the break.

For the crafts for each festival, see Waldorf seasonal crafts through the year. For the songs, see singing together in a co-op.

How to share the preparation

The festival lives in the weeks before it. A co-op can spread that work so no one family carries it all.

Give each festival one lead family. At the start of the year, sit down with the calendar and let families choose a festival. The lead family decides what to tell, what to sing and what to make, and sends one message three weeks before. They don't do all the work. They make the decisions, so nobody else has to.

Use the three co-op mornings before. The festival can take over the art time for three weeks. For the lantern walk, that might look like this:

• Three weeks before: start the lantern song at circle. Begin the lanterns.
• Two weeks before: finish the lanterns. Tell the story of St Martin.
• The week before: sing the song all the way through. Walk the route with the adults.

Ask every family to bring one thing. It might be a pot of soup or a loaf. Someone brings the candles and matches, and someone brings the first-aid kit. Write the list in the lead family's message, with a name beside each item.

Keep a festival box. After each festival, put what you'll need again in a labeled box. The maypole ribbons go in, with the song words and a note of what worked. Next year's lead family opens the box and starts halfway there. Our first term plan shows how the autumn festivals sit among the weeks, and there are term plans for winter and spring too.

A festival note to copy

The lead family can send something like this, three weeks before:

• Festival: ______
• Date, time and place: ______
• Who's invited: co-op families / grandparents and friends too
• The story: ______
• The song (words attached): ______
• What we'll make on co-op mornings: ______
• Please bring: ______ (name beside each item)
• What children wear: ______
• If the weather is bad: ______

Festival evenings, cost and who comes

Evenings. The lantern walk and St John's fire happen at dusk, outside the usual co-op morning. Some families can't come to evenings. Decide as a group whether festival evenings are part of the commitment or open to whoever can come, and say so in writing.

Cost. It depends on what you choose. Beeswax for candle dipping costs more than paper for lanterns. Decide at the start of the year whether festival materials come from the co-op fund or from each family, and put a line for them in your co-op budget.

Guests. Some Waldorf schools open their festivals to the wider community. A co-op can too, and a May Day or lantern walk is a gentle way for a new family to meet the group.

To find Waldorf schools near you that open their fairs and festivals to visitors, see Waldorf fairs and festivals.

If you live in the southern hemisphere

The seasons turn around. Chrysalis Steiner School in New South Wales keeps an autumn harvest festival in March or April. Its winter festival has lanterns and a candle-lit spiral, and in spring there are flower wreaths and a maypole. Vera Hoffmann, writing for Waldorf Resources, describes Waldorf communities around the world shaping festivals from their own seasons and local life. Choose one approach as a group and keep to it.

When your families come from different traditions

Many Waldorf festivals grew out of the Christian calendar, and a co-op may hold families of several faiths or none. Hoffmann's article describes schools working through the same question. Talk about it openly at a parents' meeting, before the year starts. Some groups keep the seasonal heart of each festival, like light in the dark or the first flowers, and let families add their own traditions at home. Is Waldorf religious? covers the background.

Starpath gives a co-op the festival year as part of a shared Waldorf-inspired program, next to a group calendar and a jobs schedule. It's free to run a co-op on it.

What to do before this term starts

1. Mark the festival dates on your co-op calendar for the year.
2. Choose 4 to 6 that are better with the group.
3. Let each family pick one to lead.
4. Agree on evenings and cost at your next parents' meeting.
5. Start a festival box after the first one.