Getting Ready To Hibernate

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Getting ready to hibernate is what best describes this crazy week between Christmas and New Year’s for me.
It is always a time of reflection and planning.
 Although I am not a fan of winter, I do, generally, look forward to this week with anticipation. It is a time of slowing down and spending time with my family.  A time to talk about highlights from this last year, and make bucket lists and vision boards for next year. This is the time that I work on my planner, think about meal planning and baking, lesson plans, and a budgeting system. This is the time of year that all activities seem to be on hiatus. We enjoy more family time this one week than the rest of the year combined.
Without this getting ready to hibernate time, I fear I just may lose my mind.

I wrote a post earlier about me and my planner, I’d love for you to check it out!
https://learningisawayoflife.com/to-plan-or-not-to-plan-that-is-the-question/

Then, after this enjoyable week, we enter what I call our “hibernation” time.
It started innocently when the kids were young. We almost always did a unit study on hibernation during the month of January.  The term “hibernation” just kind of fits this time of year for us. So it’s stuck with us through the decades. Living in Wisconsin, our lifestyle now changes for the winter, and we spend the majority of our time indoors. Having more time in our house helps us to focus on more home ec type projects.
This year, this is going to involve everything that goes along with a DIY complete bathroom remodel.
Other years, it has involved a woodworking unit, completing scrapbooks,  a kitchen remodel, planning an extensive road trip vacation for the summer, and it always involves lots of reading, board games, music studies, party planning, and kitchen time. Generally, we start delving into any new subjects anyone wants to study. We also do away with the subjects that are no longer holding anyone’s interests and tweak whatever we had been using to fit where each child is now at. This is the time of year that I’m evaluating what they have learned and what needs to be focused on.
This hibernation time always brings us closer as a family and helps me to remember why I chose to homeschool in the first place.  
It always amazes me how much each of us has changed over the course of the last busy year.
Hibernation time is similar to a college winterim.  It’s a month or so of staying inside and making changes and trying new things and jumping into major projects together.  It’s the transition from our fall semester(which is always chaotically busy) to our spring term.

So what does a day look like during our getting ready to hibernate and hibernation time?  

We all sleep in about an hour later than usual.  We wake up and make a large homemade breakfast, eat together, and start a new prayer journal for the next year.  This is also a fun time to look through our last prayer journal and talk about both answered and unanswered prayers from the last year.  This leads to some time digging into our Bibles and reading about prayer.

After breakfast, we do the chores while listening to a CD from a new composer that we’ve agreed upon(this year it is Franz Schubert).

After chores, everyone sits and reads a book of their choosing for about half an hour or so and then we start talking about the jobs we’ll be doing for the bathroom today. Research and prep time as we jump into the project until lunchtime.

Quick, late lunch of leftovers while discussing how the bathroom is going and what we need to do next in there, either tonight or tomorrow.  We also decide what we’re going to have for dinner and dessert. My oldest volunteers to make the dessert and my youngest will make the dinner.  One of the perks of this month is that I have very little to do with the meal planning and making. They start making sure they have everything they need while the middle 2 and I start our list of what we need for the bathroom.  

One of my sons received a new camera for Christmas, so we decide to do a photo shoot.  The other 3 kids get all dressed up while he re-reads the camera manual and gathers everything he needs into his camera bag.  We have chosen a few locations, and are off. We stop at each place and he gets in a lot of practice. Lots of laughs and silly photos are the perfect way to spend this afternoon.  
Next, it’s time to go run the errands. We go to get the groceries that the oldest and youngest need to make our evening meal, and then we’re off to get the supplies needed for the bathroom.  A quick stop at the library to stock up on some more books for the week and we’re back home and ready to get busy.

While 2 work in the kitchen, the other 2 start prepping everything for another work session in the bathroom after dinner.  

After dinner and working in the kitchen, we’ll gather in the living room, talk through what we’d like to accomplish tomorrow, and watch a movie or some Netflix(we have compiled a list for the month).  Tonight’s choice will be to FINALLY finish Making Of A Murderer on Netflix, and I can’t wait.

Things are laid back.  The kids are busy, motivated, and excited about what they’re doing.  I have time to think and work on what I want to do.
I hear laughter, see smiling faces and my heart just melts.

I love this month of hibernation!  I truly believe this is what has helped us to stay the close-knit family that I’ve always dreamed we’d be.

Do you have a period of time while getting ready to hibernate?
Does anyone else have a time of hibernation?