Winter Holidays Around the World

All I want for Christmas is Peace.

 World peace, peace in the lives of those affected by tragedy, heck, I'd settle for some simple peace and quiet...who says I'm hard to shop for?!?  The next few weeks are gonna be full of fun and games but CRAZY!!!!  I am babysitting one of my former students during the school break, we are having my sister-in-law down from Seattle for a visit, and there's one more thing...oh yeah, CHRISTMAS!!  So, for the sake of my sanity, we will be learning about the winter holidays and celebrations from a few different countries instead of an in depth study of two countries.  We celebrate Christmas, so the majority of the projects will be related to that holiday but I also plan to touch on Hannukah (which just ended) and some others from different religions.  Should be fun and a different change of pace.  What does YOUR family do for the holidays?  Do you go to the beach like they do in the Southern Hemisphere where it's the middle of summer?  Does your whole family make cookies, or tamales, or a special treat for Santa?  I'd LOVE to know!!  We make treats for our neighbors and deliver them a few days before Christmas.  This year, we are making chocolate pretzels with sprinkles and cinnamon sugar pretzels.  They are baking right now and they smell sooooo good!  We usually do a gingerbread house  and drive around to see the lights in the neighborhood.  We try to go sit on Santa's lap but my daughter has never really liked Santa much!  We spend way too much money on each other and have WAY too much delicious food to eat.  Life is good around here at Christmastime.  Hope you can say the same. 

 My daughter at 6 months - and she is still the same way!!!