Books to Teach Kids About Chinese New Year

Editor’s Note: If you missed out on Rebecca’s morning post giving us a look inside the Waldorf classroom, you can read it HERE. Now, here’s Robin reviewing a cool collection of children’s books that help kids learn about Chinese culture and Chinese New Year. Have a great afternoon. Here’s Robin:
I get sort of droopy after [...]

Making Old Family Traditions Your Own

Editor’s Note: This morning Marcie Dumais is on site with a look at folding old family traditions into your very own new holiday traditions. It’s such a fun time of year to reflect, honor, laugh and enjoy. Creating those memories and reliving happy pieces of our childhood are some of the best parts of this [...]

Preserving Holiday Traditions with Sausage & Kraut

Tucked away in a kitchen cupboard is an old paper-bound cookbook. It’s nothing fancy, no spectacular photography, not even a professional print job. But, this book – The Wigilia – is one of my dearest possessions.
When I was nine, my grandmother and I traded letters and tapes once a week for a month as she [...]

Holiday Traditions Around the World & Global Giving

Editor’s Note: This morning Gayle Bates of the Comox Valley Regional District’s 5Rs fame talks a bit about looking at caring for the planet by getting to know the Winter traditions of people from different cultures all across the globe. Then, you can check out a few great spots to give gifts of planetary stewardship [...]

Homemade Holiday Treats – Baklava

It was my childhood Winter wonderland – this magical place where all things flour and powdered sugar, pecan tart and almond brittle converged and I knew I had caught a glimpse of perfection.
To the average person, that place looked like my grandmother’s basement. But, to me, with it packed – literally – from floor to [...]

Blog Book Tour – This Is The Feast

When I first got the invitation to join in the blog book tour for This Is The Feast by Diane Z. Shore, illustrated by Megan Lloyd, I wasn’t entirely confident as we here in Canada have long passed our Thanksgiving holiday.
But, all it took was opening the package, personally sent from Shore, with a handwritten [...]

Time-Honoured Motherhood – The Blessing Way

Editor’s Note: It is with a serious dose of excitement that I introduce Deepa Upadhyaya as she debuts her monthly column BUMPS – Birth, Unity, Motherhood, Pregnancy, Stories.
When talking pregnancy, there’s so much more than the process. As women it binds us, resonates to our very core, back countless generations and forward so many more. [...]

Family Traditions – The Gratitude Alphabet

I’m always looking for new ways to celebrate old traditions around our house.
One of those oldies but goodies I remember fondly from childhood is sitting around the Thanksgiving table – staring down my brother for the rights to be the first one to dig into the fresh perogis – taking turns telling everyone what we [...]

Books that Make Home Life Inspirational

I have a crush.
Not really on a person, but a lifestyle – a way of being that is both simple and magical. It pulls together all of the homemade goodness of our childhoods with the purposeful parenting partnerships of today’s generation of moms and dads.
It’s one of those things that I’ve been in denial about [...]

Chinese Lanterns & Other Traditions

All he did was turn his lantern on.
I had no idea why it could possibly be so cool, but the Chinese lettering and lovely art that glowed red through the paper hanging from the ceiling sucked me in and my pal Cliff, with his parents smiling modestly in the background, began to tell us all [...]

Holidays Around the World – Kwanzaa

While relatively new on the holiday schedule, the North American celebration of Kwanzaa is rooted in the strong cultural heritage of people of African descent and their annual celebrations.
Kicking off on December 26, 2007 the seven-day festival of “first fruits” (Kwanzaa’s definition in Swahili) honours seven principles or Kawaida:

* Umoja (Unity) To strive for and [...]

Holidays Around the World – Winter Solstice

A Winter chill is in the air. The days are short. Vacation planning to warm February destinations is at its peak.
And, by the end of next week, much of the world will be in the midst of mid-Winter celebrations that range from the simple placement of special gifts of food on Winter dinner tables to [...]

Holidays Around the World – Hanukkah

For the next few days we’re going to spend some time checking out other holidays celebrated by children around the world this year. When I was a kiddo, some of the most memorable experiences I ever had included experiencing the different holiday celebrations of friends of all faiths and ethnic backgrounds.
Giving your kiddos the opportunity [...]

The Great Pumpkin Saves Kids from Sugar Overload

A while back, I discovered The Tale of the Great Pumpkin.
I heard it in conversation. I read it on website after website, this spookytacular tale of bribing the kiddos out of their candy.
I am convinced that one brilliant parent out there came up with this remarkably savvy tool for reducing the sugar buzz factor around [...]

Halloween Spookytacular – Fright Night Events

We were so stoked.
The tiny person had put in a request, nearly every hour, for more than a week, to be a spider for Halloween.
Not being the creative one in the family, I wondered where the heck I could buy a spider costume. My husband the artist, on the other hand, was all about making [...]

Pumped Up Pumpkin Carving

Pumpkin carving is one of THE great family rituals around here.
Me, I’m the pumpkin patch lover. In my estimation, there is nothing as fun as an afternoon running around the farm, picking out the perfect pumpkin and soaking up that harvest energy.
My husband is the pumpkin carving master, the maestro of glowing squash, the king [...]

Starting Family Holiday Traditions

It’s Thanksgiving Eve around these parts and alongside the onset of the holiday season comes the nearly compulsive desire by practically everyone I know to pull out some utterly fantastic family tradition that is yet to have been test driven.
I sooooo love the day dreams in my head of cozy holidays during which the family [...]