Holidays

The Holidays Can Be Stressful – But Here’s Something Fun!

~ corinnemasur2331 ~ Leave a comment

Reviving an old but so relevant post:

The winter holidays are here and this is supposed to be a joyous time – but as we all know, it can be stressful.

Will all the cooking and preparing get done? Will the children have needs and wants that get in the way of getting things done? Will the children be disappointed with the gifts they get? And after the presents are opened, will people talk about politics? Will a fight break out? Will children jump up from the holiday table and run around while everyone is eating?

Well, yes, some of these things may happen.

But there ARE some things you can do to reduce the stress. First of all, try to do as much as you can ahead of time. Instead of doing everything the same day or the day before, start the preparations several days in advance and do a little each day. And try not to stay up too late so you’re tired when the holiday actually arrives.

Secondly, try to keep your kids busy. On the days leading up to the holiday, before everyone comes, or before you go to the house where the holiday is being celebrated, give your kids some projects: give them jobs to help you, provide them with an art project to do while you cook or make preparations. Let them make holiday decorations to put up. Or suggest that they make a holiday card to give each guest. Set them up at a table out of your way. Try having them make little place cards so people will know where to sit at the table.

And thirdly, let children get involved with food prep. They feel so proud when something they helped to make is served. And they may be more likely to eat it if they had a hand in making it!

A day or two ahead, let children help you make the recipe below:

You can keep these covered in the refrig for a day or two and then cook right before you serve the meal:

Steve’s Sweet Potato Marshmallow Balls

You will need:

sweet potatoes

1 bag normal sized marshmallows (not mini)

brown sugar

butter

corn flakes

Roast how ever many sweet potatoes you need (1 per 2 people). Place unpeeled sweet potatoes on a cookie sheet and roast at 400 degrees until soft (45 min to an hour).  Let sweet potatoes cool then remove the skin. Kids can help with this. It’s easy and messy. What could be better? Then put the sweet potatoes into a large mixing bowl and mash. Kids can do this too. If you have more than one child, give each a bowl and a masher of their own. They can use a potato masher or their (clean) hands.  (With supervision, anyone two or older can do this part). After mashing add a little brown sugar. Taste. Make sure they are the level of sweetness you and your child like (this may require a bit of negotiation).

Now for the fun part!

Put corn flakes on a cookie sheet with sides and have your child mash with his/her fists.

Then have your child stand at the counter and take one marshmallow. Have them take a scoop of sweet potato and form into a ball around the marshmallow.  Each ball should be larger than a golf ball but smaller than a baseball.

Roll each sweet potato ball in the corn flakes to coat.

Place finished sweet potato balls on a greased cookie sheet.  Put a small pat of butter on top of each one.

Refrigerate for later use or bake right away at 375 for 15 or 20 minutes or until the marshmallows inside are gooey.  Do not leave in too long or the marshmallows will totally melt and your child will be disappointed.  (You can always take one out to test the marshmallow inside!)

Serve warm.

And try to find some perfect moments during the holidays. To expect the whole time to be fun is setting your expectations WAY too high. But a few wonderful moments? More doable!

The Holidays Can Be Stressful – But Here’s Something Fun!

~ corinnemasur2331 ~ Leave a comment

Thanksgiving is here (in the US) and other holidays are coming up fast. This is supposed to be a joyous time – but as we all know, it can be stressful!

Will all the cooking and preparing get done? Will the children have needs and wants that get in the way of getting things done? After the family and friends arrive, will people talk about politics? Will a fight break out? Will children jump up from the table and run around while everyone is eating?

Well, yes, some of these things may happen.

But there ARE some things you can do to reduce the stress somewhat. First of all, try to do as much as you can ahead of time. Instead of doing everything on Thanksgiving Day, start the preparations several days in advance and do a little each day.

Secondly, try to keep your kids busy. On the day of the holiday, before everyone comes, or before you go to the house where the holiday is being celebrated, give them an art project to do while you cook or make preparations: let them make holiday pictures to put up. Let them make a holiday card to give each guest. Have them make little place cards so people will know where to sit at the table.

And thirdly, let children get involved with food prep. They feels so proud when something they helped to make is served. And they may be more likely to eat it if they had a hand in making it!

A day or two ahead, let children help you make the recipe below:

You can keep these covered in the refrig for a day or two and then cook right before you serve the meal:

Steve’s Sweet Potato Marshmallow Balls

You will need:

sweet potatoes

1 bag normal sized marshmallows (not mini)

brown sugar

butter

corn flakes

Roast how ever many sweet potatoes you need (1 per 2 people). Place unpeeled sweet potatoes on a cookie sheet and roast at 400 degrees until soft (45 min to an hour).  Let sweet potatoes cool then remove the skin and put into a large mixing bowl. Mash the potatoes using a potato masher or hands.  After mashing add a little brown sugar. Taste. Make sure they are the level of sweetness you and your child like (this may require a bit of negotiation).

Now for the fun part!

Put corn flakes on a cookie sheet with sides and have your child mash with his/her fists.

Then have your child stand at the counter and take one marshmallow. Take a scoop of sweet potato and form into a ball around the marshmallow.  Each ball should be larger than a golf ball but smaller than a baseball.

Roll each sweet potato ball in the corn flakes to coat.

Place finished sweet potato balls on a greased cookie sheet.  Put a small pat of butter on top of each one.

Refrigerate for later use or bake right away at 375 for 15 or 20 minutes or until the marshmallows inside are gooey.  Do not leave in too long or the marshmallows will totally melt and your child will be disappointed.  You can always take one out to test the marshmallow inside!

Serve warm.

It’s Diwali!

~ corinnemasur2331 ~ 1 Comment

Do you – and your children – know the story?

Today in our parenting group one mother brought up the fact that her two year old was going to learn about Diwali today at pre-school – but she knew nothing about the holiday herself! She was worried that she wouldn’t be able to provide any meaningful context for him when he came home.

I admitted that I knew almost nothing about Diwali myself – but we talked about how important it is for children to be able to enjoy and understand one another’s traditions.

And then another mother in the group came to the rescue and explained the holiday to us. She and her family celebrate Diwali and she told us about what they were going to do this year.

But she also told us that growing up in a Hindu family, she always heard the story of the holiday told from the male point of view and that she had decided a couple of years ago to write the story from the feminine point of view. She wanted her children – as well as others – to learn the story in a new way.

And then she told us the story: she explained that the holiday celebrates Sita, the daughter of earth and an incarnation of the Goddess Lakshmi and her return to freedom after being kidnapped by the evil Ravan. And she went on to say that this story is about Sita’s courage both quiet and loud, never to be mistaken for meekness.

At this time of year there are a LOT of holidays – and it may be confusing for young children, especially those in preschool and kindergarten.

Help them out!

You can begin to explain about religion to them if you have not already done so. And while a complicated topic, you can start by telling them that religion is something that helps people to know what to believe. You can go on to say that people who are one religion believe certain things while people that are a different religion believe different things. You can tell them about what you believe and which holidays you prefer to celebrate – but you can also help them to understand about all the different holidays they will see celebrated at school and in their communities.

And if you or your children (ages 7 and over) want to know more about the first Diwali, you can read about it through the eyes of Sita, and learn how she won the battle of good over evil in the book written by our group member!

Link:https://www.amazon.com/Seeking-Sita-Tejal-Toprani-Misra/dp/1665751010

Coming Home to New Traditions

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By Victoria Cano

I was never a cooking kid. Despite the many invitations into their separate kitchens I always refused my parents offers to help cook. I never made paprikash csirke with my mom or baked ziti with my dad. The kitchen and all its mysteries was the domain of parents. Except on Christmas. Because on Christmas we didn’t cook. We baked. 

Cooking, to me, was the Wild West. Full of strange ingredients, relying on instinct and secret troves of knowledge. Baking was different. There were a key set of players that could be rearranged into a thousand different delicious things. There were steps, there was order, there was control. And as a kid, in that, I found magic. 

For the past seven years I have missed those baking Christmases. I wasn’t with EITHER parent – both because I lived abroad and because of the pandemic. 

For many people, like me, this will literally be the first holiday season they have together with family in years.

And while that is so so wonderful. It presents a challenge many of us weren’t expecting. In the absence of our routines, in a world turned topsy turvey, traditions were rearranged. Adapted. Transformed. As were relationships and rituals. 

Right before the pandemic my mother had gone on a few dates with a guy, I barely remembered his name. Now I know him as Peter, my stepfather, and the man who made her feel loved enough she decided to move in with him after twenty years living on her own. The era of going to my grandmother’s house for the holiday too has ended (she’s moving in with my mom.) And my father, who, over the 25 years of their divorce only ever lived down the road, is moving the day after Christmas to Albany, 3.5 hours away.

There is a part of me that just wants to yell ‘Stop! Hang on a second! Let me catch up.”

At first, I felt like that little kid being invited back into my parents kitchen to cook.I don’t understand. Where is everything as I left it? Where is it all going? 

I’m a thirty year old kid and having these questions, these before bedtime fears. So too may many of your little ones. Routine and ritual can be so beneficial and comforting to a child. 

Kids love baking. 

So how do we talk to our children, both little and big, about life, the holidays as they now are, about a world where traditions sometimes have to change and rearrange?

Every year as I was growing up, my mother and I celebrated advent (the entire December month long lead up to Christmas.) Since I was 18 and moved away, we haven’t had much of a chance to spend that time together. I haven’t gotten to read to her her favorite Christmas Story (A Child’s Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas.) 

This year I have. And when I sit on the couch to do so, my grandmother is there too. And before we begin, Peter lights the Chanukah candles and sings Maoz Tzur. Later tonight I’ll help my father finish packing, moving for the first time to a place that is his and no one else’s. As I sit and read, I can see the advent candles flickering side by side with our menorah. 

It is indeed a strange new world. And that can scare kids and their grownups (and grownup kids) alike. But in the strangeness, new beauty and new wonders can be found. And as I sit and read, looking at the glowing world around me, I am reassured that everything is going to be fine, that the kids are going to be alright. Because they’ll learn that old traditions mesh with new ones, and you can make something together, in which everyone is involved. And, from where I’m sitting, that’s a wonderful thing. 

After I finish reading, I’ll watch the candles go out, wrap my dad his presents to open in his new house, and later I’ll help with the cooking (and the baking!)

Holidays: 2020

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Dr. Corinne Masur

This is Bear and Piggy, two Native American carved fetishes.  A creative woman I know sent them as a gift to a friend.  And as she packed them up in their box and thought about the trip they were about to make, she decided to write a story about this for the children in her family.  Because she could not actually be with the children this year due to Covid, she printed up a little board book with the story accompanied by photographs of Bear and Piggy emerging from their box.
This year we are all going to need to think outside of the box when it comes to the holidays.  Many of us are used to doing the same things each year – getting together with the same relatives at the same place, in the same way.  And these rituals are so comforting and so familiar that many of us are trying to figure out how we can continue them this year.
But, really, does this make any sense?
In many places Covid numbers are way up. They are higher than they were at the beginning of the pandemic; they are higher than they were during the summer.
This year calls for creativity.  And flexibility.
One mom I know has made her garage into a playroom for her children and the occasional friend who comes over and she is thinking of setting up a dining room table there for Thanksgiving dinner – with the garage door open!
Another parent I’ve talked to is going to forego eating Thanksgiving dinner with the extended family and is going to have a brief Thanksgiving get together with masks and social distancing – just long enough to give each family member a to-go turkey dinner in take out containers!
So this year, whether you decide to write a children’s book and send it to the kids in your family, or eat in the garage, try not to let the old traditions tempt you into taking risks you really don’t want to take. 
Be flexible, be creative, and get out of YOUR box!

Thanksgiving Table Discussions

~ Thoughtful Parenting ~ 1 Comment

thanksgiving_table_2000x1200

Dr. Corinne Masur

People are afraid this Thanksgiving– not of the usual dried out turkey, but of the discussions that are anticipated at the table. Some are even skipping Thanksgiving altogether, in order to avoid painful conversations and heightened tension at their usual holiday gathering places.

This year poses challenges for families. The interpersonal differences and conflicts that we expect to at the holidays are trumped by the election hangover. Families that have members who voted for both Clinton and Trump are grappling with what do do.

For those who have decided to meet anyway, and even for those who agree on the election results, there’s something else to consider: what will the children at the table hear and what does it mean to them? Continue reading →

Is Video Killing the Family Vacation?

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Dr. Corinne Masur

sea-sky-beach-holiday

Yes it is, says Nick Confalone, the man who became famous for making funny Vine videos of his infant son.  In a New York Times article on the topic, Mr. Confalone said of his constant videotaping: “I’m pulling (my family) out of the moment to try to create a version of that moment.”  Rather than enjoying the time with his son, Mr. Confalone realized that he had been taken over by the desire to create something for others to watch and enjoy. And rather than actually being with his son, he was trying to create a visual document about his son for his family to watch later. “Video,” he said, “is such an exact record of a moment that it threatens to replace the memories you have of that moment.”

And then there are the risks involved. Continue reading →