I’m planning to make Groundhog Pancakes to celebrate. They are just so cute, I can’t resist!
You may not be very excited about Groundhog Day. You may never have celebrated it or thought about it before, let alone studied about it. But there is some interesting history to this holiday, and some people actually take it rather seriously. For example, the people in Punxsutawney, PA take it very seriously, since it’s their Punxsutawney Phil that looks for his shadow and predicts the weather for the nation. Groundhog.org says, “Legend decrees that if Phil sees his shadow on February 2nd, six more weeks of winter weather will befall the world. If no shadow is apparent we’re in for the delights of an early spring.”
Groundhog.org is a website dedicated to this holiday and the celebration in Punxsutawney, PA.
This is their invitation for this year’s event in Punxsutawney, PA:
“Come and celebrate the 128th year of Groundhog Day at Gobblers Knob, Sunday, February 2nd 2014.
This is the main event where Punxsutawney Phil, the Seer of Seers, the Prognosticator of Prognosticators, the world’s most famous groundhog and the only real weather predicting groundhog will greet his true believers and will reveal to Bill Deeley the president of the Inner Circle of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club his prediction for the end of winter.”
They conduct a whole ceremony, complete with top hats and formal attire.
This is a page on the website that lists activities and lesson plans according to grade level.
Many of the activities in Punxsutawney appear to be adult-oriented, so you may not want to schedule a family field trip to go there.
But we can still do a lot of fun things with this in our own homes.
This blog has lots of ideas that will make your celebration fun and interesting.
Here is a printable that tells the history of Groundhog Day.
This page tells the history of Groundhog Day from the perspective of different cultures, and it tells us why this particular date was chosen.
Very interesting!
There really is a point to this kind of watching nature to see what is coming. If you read a Farmer’s Almanac, it is based on watching signs in nature. And you can get a general idea of what kind of weather to expect and when to plant what. It helps you to plan. Sometimes it even helps you to know how to pray.
So you can talk with your kids about the things that farmers look for as signs of what is coming. And we can learn to observe the trees and buds and the coats of animals to predict what kind of winter or summer we may have.
The Bible talks about watching for these kinds of signs.
Genesis 1:14 says: “Then God said, “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years;”
Matt. 16:2 – “He answered and said to them, ‘When it is evening you say, “It will be fair weather, for the sky is red”;'”
And the people asked Jesus what signs would show that His return was near.
Luke 21:7 – “So they asked Him, saying, ‘Teacher, but when will these things be? And what sign will there be when these things are about to take place?'”
Luke 21:25 – “And there will be signs in the sun, in the moon, and in the stars; and on the earth distress of nations, with perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring;”
Jesus dignified their question with an answer, so He must have thought it was a good thing to watch for signs. Which tells us that God really does give us signs about things that are coming. And we should be looking for the signs that He is giving us.
Matt. 24:32 – “Now learn this parable from the fig tree: When its branch has already become tender and puts forth leaves, you know that summer is near.”
There is a spiritual implication to many aspects of nature. God uses many ways to speak to us.
We need to be reading His written Word and basing everything on that, but He also speaks in other ways, and we should not be deaf or blind to those ways.
"Oh that God would give every mother a vision of the glory and splendor of the work that is given to her when a babe is placed in her bosom to be nursed and trained! Could she have but one glimpse in to the future of that life as it reaches on into eternity; could she look into its soul to see its possibilities; could she be made to understand her own personal responsibility for the training of this child, for the development of its life, and for its destiny,--she would see that in all God's world there is no other work so noble and so worthy of her best powers, and she would commit to no other's hands the sacred and holy trust given to her." -JR Miller
