Holiday Traditions

I've seen so many wonderful blog posts for Christmas and Hanukkah lately, and just wanted to share some of the holiday traditions that we have.  Honestly, I've been more focused on preparing math and logical reasoning activities for the kids lately than holiday crafts, but we use our little advent calendar (above) to include at least one holiday activity each day.  Here's some of what we have planned this year...

• Making ornaments out of Model Magic, beads, paper, popsicle sticks, etc.. (the ones above were made last year when my girls were 2) 

• Seeing holiday light displays
• Watching holiday movies together (the girls LOVED Polar Express because they got to take the Polar Express train ride over Thanksgiving weekend, which follows the plot of the movie/book)

•  Various Christmas crafts using paper, markers, paints, craft foam, stickers, etc..
•  Decorate felt Christmas stockings
•  Decorate a gingerbread house (I bought a kit this year instead of the individual supplies)

•  Holiday cooking and special snacks (like the yogurt with sprinkles pictured above)
•  Handmade gifts - there will be a lot of these this year, but I don't want to spoil the surprise by posting about them on my blog 

 We're a mixed-religion household, so we celebrate Hanukkah as well as Christmas.  Unfortunately, it's tough to have two competing holidays.  We have a lone menorah sitting in our living room amongst all the Christmas decorations...

 We've used the same candles for the last 5 years since we never really light them.  I think this year I'll integrate Hanukkah into a learning unit about Israel (we're going to start learning about countries around the world), so we can actually celebrate it and make it something memorable for the kids.