Category: Holidays
Making Thanksgiving Traditions
When I was little, we would always gather at my grandmother’s house for Thanksgiving. It was a feast for the senses. The aromas of roast turkey, sage dressing, and sweet potatoes with warm cinnamon and maple syrup permeated the air. My aunt would roast the turkey at her house, making two different kinds of stuffing: […]
Getting Organized: Tame Your Schedule
Happy New Year! Is one of your new year’s resolutions to get organized? Many of us have that same resolution year after year… I know I do! One of the problems is that, especially when you have kids, nothing is constant. Clothes are outgrown, the kids’ activities change season to season, carpool arrangements change each […]
New Years Eve Traditions
When I was a kid, I remember looking forward to New Year’s Eve: It was the one night of the year that my brothers and I could stay up all night long (well, until midnight), eating junk food and watching movies until finally the ball would drop in Times Square, indicating the end of the […]
Thinking Ahead About New Year’s Resolutions
I know New Year’s Day is still a couple of weeks away, and you’re probably in the midst of celebrating other holidays at the moment. Still, this is a great time to start to think back over the previous year and decide what changes you might want to make after the ball drops, welcoming in […]
May Day Traditions to Enjoy at Home
May 1 is also known as May Day in some parts of the world. This holiday has been celebrated for thousands of years; it likely started out as a pagan celebration of the spring, fertility and the new year (this was before the current calendar came to be). Now, children and adults in various parts […]
Favorite Holiday Movies for the Family
With the wind blowing and the snow falling, December is a great month for snuggling in with the family for frequent movie nights or marathon afternoons! December is the time that all of the holiday classics play, so you might just be able to watch what’s already playing on television. Otherwise, you can always hit […]
Family Traditions: St. Nicholas Day
Our family enjoys hosting foreign exchange students, and over the years, we’ve been able to experience some of the interesting observances and celebrations that other cultures participate in. One of our family favorites is one that a German student brought to our home several years ago: St. Nicholas Day.
In Germany, children place one or two […]
How to Find the Perfect Christmas Tree
The search for the perfect Christmas tree is a holiday season rite of passage for many families. You want to love your tree – after all, you’ll most likely be looking at it for several weeks, and for many people, the tree is the center point of the Christmas Eve and Christmas Day celebrations, so […]
October 16 is Dictionary Day!
October 16th is Dictionary Day. It was designated as Dictionary Day because it is the birthday of Noah Webster, who you may recognize as the man who gave us Webster’s Dictionary. It is to Noah Webster that we owe the standardized American spellings of words that we’re familiar with (for example “color” as opposed to […]
Talk Like a Pirate Day is September 19
Ahoy, mateys or “Ahoy, me hearties!” There is an unusual holiday approaching in September. September 19th is International Talk Like a Pirate Day. This unusual holiday was created by John Baur and Mark Summers (Ol’ Chumbucket and Cap’n Slappy, in pirate parlance) after one of them exclaimed “Aaarrr!” after being injured during a racquetball game […]
