Paper Lanterns

It began with a gift of twenty-five vintage paper lanterns, which had been brought over from Germany fifty years earlier. Some were shaped like birds and fish, others like stars. They belonged to a woman on our Board of Directors, who, when she was a child, would carry a lantern through her small German village, singing songs with the other children on the Feast of Saint Michael. She asked if I could dream up a way to use them in our small nature school. I landed on the Winter Solstice.

That first year, in what was an especially cold Wisconsin December, I nearly gave myself frostbite as I spent more than ninety minutes without gloves, placing small, electric candles every twenty-five feet down the trails, leading to the shoreline so that we could watch the moon rise over Lake Michigan. My thumb nails were broken by the time I was done, but the effect was magical. The trails glowed with tiny lights, as the familiar landscape of nature school darkened, and trees became black silhouettes against an ink blue sky. ?

?By four-thirty it was fully dark, and I was onto the next phase: passing out hundreds of paper lanterns (purchased in bulk, online) along with battery operated lights, to eager children and families. Those twenty-five vintage German lanterns I reserved for the staff, whose role was to lead our families down to the edges of the lake to welcome the longest night.

A few things went wrong that first year. The apple cider we offered after the hike was too hot. Some people mistook the glowing candles in jars that we had set up along the entrance for spare lanterns, which they attempted to carry with them, only to find the glass was too slippery to hold with mittens, and far too hot to hold with bare hands. But mostly, it was a triumph. People begged us to make it an annual event.

?We did, making small adjustments each year. We brought in volunteers to help with the set up and take down, saving my fingers and thumbnails. We added luminaries in white paper bags and doubled the number of trail lights. We invited people to bring their own warm drinks in their own insulated mugs. We added an outdoor fire where people could gather after, and which added the scent of wood smoke to the cold winter air.?

Venturing forth into the dark winter night is both a slap in the face and an embrace, similar, in some respects, to plunging into an ice-cold lake only to find the water is warm compared to the air overhead. You are welcomed by the glow of lights and chilled by the unfamiliar. ?It is almost primal to be out in the woods, where moonlight and eyeshine rule the night. The Wisconsin air stings, making your nose run.? Your toes and fingers quickly grow cold, while the rest of you overheats inside your ludicrously puffy coat.

We created the event for children, but it was the parents who truly benefited. “I needed this,” more than one of them told me. “I had no idea how much I needed this.” They needed the gentle reminder that winter, and the holidays, can be about more than cooking and hosting and planning playdates, more than meeting the needs of their families, more than spending too much money and finding months of indoor activities to keep their children entertained.

While the children enjoyed the magic of their glowing paper lanterns, it was the adults who needed to be a little too cold, to be a little unsure of where they were going, and to soak in the quiet of the longest night. They needed to feel that tiny spark that stirs deep within us, when we’re not sure if the light up ahead belongs to the glowing eyes of an owl, or to a flickering paper lantern.

What about you? How do you replenish in this season of cold and dark? How do you create magical experiences for others that do not come at your own expense? What is your paper lantern?