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New Year's Eve
31 December
 Hallmark
has some free ecards for New Year at:
www.hallmark.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet If
you're hosting a party for adults or family with older kids, the old
parlour game "Who is it?" always goes down
well. If you remember the sports quiz "They Think It's
All Over", this is the last game that was played in every
episode of the show. You can buy (quite expensive) card games
to play this, or you can just print off the following 6 pages, cut
out each of the names, pop them all in a box or bag and play a more
traditional version of the game!
Who is it?1
Who is
it?2
Who is
it?3
Who is
it?4
Who is
it?5
Who is it?6
The easiest way to play is to divide your guests into two teams. One
of the players takes names out of the box one at a time and
describes, to the rest of his team, the person whose name
appears. They can use words, catch phrases or even charades to
get the meaning across as quickly as possible. Keep going for
one minute and, at the end of the minute, the team keeps all the
names they guessed correctly. Those that they couldn't guess
are returned to the box. If the reader doesn't think he can
describe a name he can "pass" and return it to the box,
but he can only pass twice on his turn. Repeat for the
opposing team. Make sure each member of both teams has a turn
to be the reader. Carry on playing until you run out of names
or enthusiasm. The team that guesses the most names wins. Here's
a lovely idea for frazzled parents on New Year's
Eve, it's a Pyjama Party and sleepover which instantly solves the
problem of guests not being able to drink and drive. The
details are to be found at: http://home.ivillage.com/holiday/0,,8jmf72x5-2,00.html
The author of this article is not really thinking of
including kids, but if you got together with just a few families you
get on well with and adapted it a bit, it could be great fun! An
interesting activity for kids would be to give each of them a
smallish candle and ask them to push
a pin through it.
Apparently the phrase "you could hear a pin drop"
comes from the tradition of pushing
a pin through a candle, which
when burned down, dropped out at midnight. See whose pin drops
out closest to the time (and see if you can hear it) - this might be
one way of getting a quiet moment! There
were some great ideas in an American magazine called "Family
Fun". These included getting the kids to make big
cardboard placards with each of the numbers 1-10 on them to hold up
one after
the other at the countdown until midnight.
Just before the countdown, play Hunt the Clock (if the
clock has a nice loud tick it adds a whole new dimension to
the game). You can make your own New Year's Balloons by
filling balloons with homemade confetti (colored paper cut out
with a hole punch) before blowing them up and tying them.
These can then be burst at midnight for a colourful explosion of
confetti. The last idea was a very clever one. Encourage
the kids to write a New Year's resolution on a piece of
paper, then put each of these into the appropriate Christmas stocking before storing them. This way they will not be seen
again until almost 12 months have gone by, plus they will be
something else to enjoy in the run up to Christmas. Play
End of the Year Charades by compiling a list of important
events, songs, movies or books from
2008 and getting your guests to
act them out. Most of the newspapers have already started
printing
such lists, so you shouldn't be short of ideas. When
the time comes to all link hands and sing "Auld Lang Syne"
be prepared by printing off the lyrics
from this website: http://www.rampantscotland.com/songs/blsongs_syne.htm
There is even an MP3 version of the song sung by
Kenneth McKellar - now there's a blast from the past!
After all the midnight celebrations,
make sure you have someone tall, dark and handsome to "First
Foot" your house (by going out and coming in again!)
According to Scottish Hogmanay tradition, your first visitor of the
year will determine how lucky you will be. The most luck is
brought by a tall, dark handsome man bringing a gift of either a
loaf of bread or a lump of coal. (That way you can be sure of
being warm and well fed throughout the New Year).
Christmas
25 December
Download
your own FREE desktop Christmas tree to sit on your screen and
sparkle festively!
http://www.get-xmas.com/
Take
a digital photo of your child's face and this site will turn it into
an animated elf.
Alternatively you can select a random
face instead. You can then send it to a friend, for whom
the elf will do a little dance! http://www.elfyourself.com/
For a quick nostalgia fix to get you in a Christmassy
mood click on this link for the poem
"The Night
Before Christmas"
www.christmas-tree.com/stories/nightbeforechristmas.html
There's a lovely spoof version here:
Politically
Correct Christmas Story
There are dozens of free e-cards to send to your friends
and workmates at Hallmark. Simply click on your choice of card
and follow the instructions:
www.hallmark.com/webapp/wcs/stores/
Make gorgeous origami decorations using the
templates or by watching the animated instructions on:
origami-club.com 
http://origami-club.com/en/
If you need to make any last minute Christmas
cards, or
your children have school projects to do over
the
holidays, this website is just perfect:
www.dorlingkindersley-uk.co.uk/static/cs/uk/11/clipart/home.html
Those lovely people at Dorling Kindersley have
decided to make their beautiful photographic images
available
to all as clipart for home or school
use.
The images are filed in categories
(Christmas, history, animals etc),
so you can find the
image you need and copy it. Homework will be
looking very professional from now on!
Thanksgiving
27 November
This is a lovely excuse for a celebration, but as it is
a time for families to come together, I have no
suggestions that would not include the kids. So,
I'll just direct you to the Tinies
and Tikes
Celebrate pages where you should be able to find more
than you need.
Bonfire Night
5 November
If you're celebrating Bonfire Night at home,
don't forget to stock up with sausages, baking potatoes,
soup and
marshmallows to toast on sticks - it wouldn't be a true Bonfire
Party without those!
Recipes
If you want to follow the American example for
camp fire parties you could try 'Smores. They get
their
name from the fact that everyone always wants some more!
You'll need:
A packet of Digestive biscuits
One large bar of chocolate
A large pack of old fashioned marshmallows (not the new fluffy kind)
Some kebab sticks
All you do is melt the marshmallows on a kebab
stick in the fire, then sandwich them between 2 Digestive
biscuits. If you squeeze a square of chocolate in there too,
it melts and goes a bit squishy as well.
Can't imagine why
everyone always wants more!
You can make easy Chocolate Sparklers by dipping chocolate finger biscuits
into warm water for a second and then into a dish of and hundreds and
thousands. The kids can help make them biscuits and they're
bound to be a success!
For some more elaborate recipe ideas try:
www.hookerycookery.com/bfire-menu.htm
and:
www.fireworks.co.uk/party/recipes.html
Both of these have a recipe for Parkins,
which are synonymous with Bonfire Night in the North of
England. They're full of oats and Golden Syrup, so they're
always well-received. The second link also
has a recipe for
Cointreau Hot Chocolate, which should ensure the grown ups have
as much fun as
the kids!
BBC Good Food has lots of yummy
recipes: www.bbcgoodfood.com
There is also a nice simple Bonfire Warmer Soup
recipe to be found here:
www.greatbritishkitchen.co.uk/recipebook
You should have most of the ingredients in your cupboards.
For filling vegetarian jacket potatoes try
the recipe at:
www.vegsoc.org/cordonvert/recipes
Here are 10 Things You Didn't Know About
Bonfire Night:
www.icons.org.uk/theicons/collection/bonfire-night
Just to be on the safe side, you may wish to download a copy
of the Fireworks Safety Code:
www.berr.gov.uk/fireworks
Halloween
31 October
Just like the Hindus, the Celts used to celebrate their new year at
the end of October. They believed that
at the beginning of
this season of long dark nights the spirits of the dead would return
to earth, so they lit
bonfires to frighten them away. Once
Christianity came to Britain, the 1st of November became "All
Saints"
or "All Hallows Day", (Hallow is an old word
for saint) so the last night of October was the eve of All Hallows
or Hallowe'en. This was a time to remember all the Christians
who had died for their faith.
Adult Parties
Ideas for an
adults only Hallowe'en party
can be found at
ivillage.com
There are some good adult halloween party games at partygameideas.com/halloween-games-adults
The site is very American, but the ideas are all
perfectly adaptable. There
also some great ideas for organising
a last minute party on howstuffworks.com
My family's favourite Halloween Party Game is the "Feely
Game". It needs a small amount of preparation,
but is
well worth the effort. You need to prepare a number of items
and place them on a table either hidden
inside shoe boxes (with a
hand hole cut in the side) or simply under separate tea
towels. All the party
guests stand outside the door and are
brought into the (darkened) room one-by-one to feel the items
on the
table and guess what they could be. The most effective items
are as follows:
2 hard boiled and shelled eggs (these will feel like eyeballs).
1 rubber glove (preferably the thin transparent kind) filled with
flour and secured at the arm end with a
rubber band.
(This feels remarkably like a human hand, if you put enough flour
inside.)
1 old wig (feels horrible in the dark)
plate of cold cooked spaghetti
a piece of pumpkin cut into the shape of an ear
1 raw sausage (you'll obviously need to wash your hands after this.)
There are lots of other things that you can do. It's most fun
to pretend people are feeling various body
parts - especially as
it's Halloween. The best way to play this game is by
encouraging the most hysterical
guest to play first. Their
shrieks only add to the tension felt by those waiting outside the
door!
Another good game is Nelson's Eye.
Only one person needs to be the "victim" as everyone
else gets to watch. It is probably best to choose
the
person with the strongest stomach! The person who has been nominated
/ who's volunteered
waits outside the door while the scene is
set. One person is going to be Nelson and another is the
story's
narrator. The rest are simply the
audience.
The person who is going to be Nelson needs to be dressed
appropriately in a heavy jacket.
He needs to put only one arm into the jacket and have the other
sleeve hanging empty.
A pirate patch is also a vital
prop.
Your last prop is a soft boiled egg with the top cut off.
The volunteer needs to be blind folded before coming into the
room. Stand the volunteer in front of "Nelson"
and
tell them that you are going to introduce them to Admiral Horatio
Nelson.
Ask them to shake Nelson's left hand.
Explain
that he cannot shake hands with his right hand because he lost that
arm in battle, then let the
volunteer feel the empty sleeve.
Tell the volunteer how brave Nelson was and how he won the Battle of
Trafalgar in October 1805,
directing the fighting from his famous
ship "The Victory". Tell how Nelson had not
only lost his arm,
but also his right eye in another battle, then
let the volunteer feel the eye patch on Nelson's face.
Explain
that he has to wear an eye patch to cover his lost eye because it is
so hideous. Now tell the
audience that Nelson is going to show them
what his face looks like without the patch, but the volunteer
must
not look.
(At which point all the other guests must scream horribly!)
Now tell the volunteer that although they can't see Nelson's missing
eye, you are going to let them feel it instead.
At this point
you guide the volunteer's finger to the soft boiled egg and poke it
into it. The audience can then
enjoy the volunteer's reaction!
Invitations and Cards
I've created some pages of ideas for Halloween
cards and party invitations. It's always difficult to
print
straight onto card, so I suggest you print off the page you
want, cut out the relevant picture and glue it to
an A5 card folded
in half. You can then write your own message inside.
Halloween
page 1
Halloween page 2
Halloween page 3
Halloween page 4
Pumpkin Carving
There is a very good tutorial to be found at Halloween
Pumpkins
They have also generously included a number of
free
templates like the one below. 
Copyright
www.halloweenpumpkins.be
Recipes
As usual the BBC has come up with the best recipes,
this time from their Good Food magazine website. You'll find spooky
spider cakes and that essential pumpkin pie recipe:
www.bbcgoodfood.com There
are also some good recipes, including a very simple Gingerbread
Skeletons & Ghosts one at the baking goods company
Supercook's website: www.supercook.co.uk/find-recipe-ideas/
The Pond Water Jelly recipe on the same site is so impressive
it's almost too good for kids!
www.supercook.co.uk/find-recipe-ideas/pond-water-jelly-recipe
Wanda's
Halloween Cookbook doesn't take itself too seriously
and it has some really lovely recipes for
Pumpkin Pie and easy Marshmallow Ghosts. The BBC website has lots of great recipe ideas for Halloween
celebrations, the chocolate brownie one looks
particularly
delicious! bbc.co.uk/food If your kids are
a
bit worried about ghosts you'll find out everything you need
to prove they're not real at:
science.howstuffworks.com
Diwali
- Festival Of Lights
21 October Diwali
celebrates the Hindu New Year. In preparation for this, people
spring clean their homes and open
windows to let in Lakshmi, the
goddess of wealth. To light the goddess' way, little lamps are
lit all over the
house. This is a real family party time, as
delicious food is prepared and fireworks are set off to ward off
evil spirits - a bit like our Halloween. On the last day of
Diwali, sisters cook for their brothers, who give
them presents in
return. There is a nice printable picture of the
goddess Lakshmi for the kids to colour here:
http://www.balagokulam.org/images/la-lakshmi.jpg
There is a really yummy Diwali pudding recipe at this BBC
webpage:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/database/bananaandsemolinashe_73018.shtml
Lammas -
Celtic Festival of the First Fruits
& the Ripening Corn.
1 August. "Lammas" is a
Saxon word meaning "loaf festival" as it celebrated the
harvesting of the first corn for
baking into bread. It was
traditionally a time when communities would gather together to
celebrate their
harvest with lots of feasting and drinking. It
was also one of the four ancient Celtic Fire Festivals. If
you'd like to celebrate Lammas, the nicest way to do it would be to
invite friends and family for a picnic
and bonfire. The food
should reflect the season and feature lots of fresh local fruits
and, of course, the
all-important bread. (You could prepare
for the picnic by picking your own fruit at somewhere like
Sharnfold
Farm.) If you want to be really authentic, you will need to
find a genuine corn dolly to take pride
of place on the table (or
picnic rug) where she can represent the spirit of the harvest.
Truly pagan types
can then keep her until the Spring, when they
should plant her in the garden to ensure a bountiful supply
of good
things next year. Keep an eye on the weather over the
next few days, too. There is an old country saying:
"If the first week of August be warm, then the winter will
be white and long".
Midsummer's Day
24 June
If you would like to celebrate Midsummer, you could have a picnic
of traditional summer foods,
such as gooseberry fool, strawberries and raspberries. You
could even bake some little round
biscuits or cakes and decorate them with smiley sun faces.
Then you might like to either dress
up as fairies and pixies or hunt in your garden to see if you can
find any hiding there on this
special day. In the evening you could have a bonfire to dance
around, just like our ancestors did.
If you like the fairy hunt idea, I've made a sheet
of printable fairies for you to cut out and
hide.
To do this click here.
You could then go back to the Mums Organize page and also print
off the beautiful fairy gazebo
from the link there. Again, you simply print this off, cut it
out and glue it together. Once made,
it can be a fairy resting place. This was originally put it
for Tooth Fairies, but it works just as well
for midsummer fairies!
Easter
21-24 March
I've created some printable sheets for an Easter Egg
Hunt Challenge for the kids on the Tikes and
Tinies Celebrate pages, this is one to do indoors if the
weather is unreliable.
For some helpful hints on how to stage
an Easter Egg Hunt outdoors for your kids try:
http://www.kidsdomain.com/holiday/easter/egghunt_backyard.html
If you're brave enough to consider an Easter Party (or
just want to have some fun with the kids),
there are lots of
ideas for games and activities at:
http://www.kidsdomain.com/holiday/easter/party.html
The Top 10 Easter Recipes (according to UKTV) can be
found at:
http://uktv.co.uk/index.cfm/uktv/Food.homepage/sid/5894
If you fancy making craft items yourself (or with the
kids), these really simple Jelly Bean Pots would
make
great, cheap centre-pieces for a table or little Easter gifts:
http://www.bhg.com/bhg/story.jhtml?storyid=/templatedata/bhg/story/data/15182.xml&catref=cat1050033
There are some wonderful free downloadable
activities for your kids at the American Family Fun
magazine website. Choose from:
A caterpillar to make with lots of ideas for things to do
in the Springtime attached to his body:
http://a.familyfun.go.com/Resources/global/printables/0306_Activity_Bughead_Template.pdf
A lovely Easter picture to colour in before hunting for all
the hidden eggs:
http://a.familyfun.go.com/Resources/global/printables/0306_Egghunt_Template.pdf
A cute Easter basket to make and keep all your tiny
chocolate eggs in:
http://a.familyfun.go.com/Resources/global/printables/0306_Easter_Basket_Template.pdf
Some Easter themed colour pictures to use when making your
own cards or just as decorations:
http://a.familyfun.go.com/Resources/global/printables/0306_Spring-stickers.pdf
St Patrick's Day
17 March
St
Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland and the 17 March is
his national day.
St Patrick was captured by pirates when he
was a boy and spent six years as a slave before
he was able to
escape. He trained as a missionary and went to Ireland to
convert the Irish
to Christianity. Ireland is famous for not
having any snakes on the island and the Irish believe
that it was St
Patrick who drove them all away. For a recipe to make
St Patrick's day cookies visit:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland/spring/recipes/cookies.shtml
There is a lovely, fun site with everything you ever
needed to know about St Patrick's Day at:
http://www.fabulousfoods.com/holidays/stpat/stpat.html The
simplest St Patrick's Day dinner is of course Irish Stew and
the simplest recipes to follow
are always Delia Smith's, so here's the link:
http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes
Valentine's Day
14 February
You probably know by now that Valentine's day is on February 14
and the day is named after a
3rd Century Roman priest called
Valentine. He became the patron saint of lovers and it is
customary
to you send something anonymously to your sweetheart on
this day. Look in the Celebrate pages
that relate to the ages
of your children for ideas and activities to do on this day.
For some nice ideas for how to celebrate Valentine's day on a
budget try:
http://www.holidays.net/amore/budget.htm
Chinese New Year
7 February
This
is the biggest celebration of the year in China and this year it
falls on 7 February.
New Year in China, as everywhere
else, is a time to get together with your family and wish everyone
good luck in the coming months. However, the Chinese calendar
is a bit like our zodiac and is made up
of a cycle of 12
years. Each year is represented by a different animal
and (like a horoscope) the Chinese
believe that you are born with
the characteristics of the animal representing your birth
year.
This year is the Year of the Rat.
If you'd like to know which animal represents your birthday, you can
put your date of birth on to this page: http://www.topmarks.co.uk/ChineseNewYear/Default.aspx
and find your Chinese horoscope.
Chinese customs for New Year include hanging red and gold paper down
the doors to keep in good luck.
These are called Hui
Chun. Red is a lucky colour in China and gold obviously
signifies wealth!
If you'd like to make a banner with
the kids for your own door then follow the instructions at:
http://www.chineseparade.com/pdf/CNY%20banners.pdf
New Year's Eve is celebrated with a family feast,
(including tasty little moon cakes) after which the family
plays
cards, with all the lights turned on, until midnight. At
midnight fireworks and crackers are set off to
ward off evil
spirits. On New Year's Day children are given lucky red
envelopes containing money or sweets
and everyone says "Kung
Hei Fat Choy!"
Find
an easy recipe for traditional Chinese moon cakes at:
http://www.dltk-kids.com/recipesdb/view.asp?rid=52
The Celebrate pages that relate to the ages of your children have
lovely links for crafty activities.
Why not celebrate Chinese New Year this year? (It will
brighten up the dark days before Spring!)
If your feeling lazy, you could always get family and friends round
and simply order in a takeaway.
Shrove Tuesday
5 February
Shrove Tuesday in the Christian calendar is the
last day before Lent. (Lent is the 40 days before
Easter).
As Lent was a time of abstinence and fasting, Shrove
Tuesday became the day when all the fats, cream
and sugar needed to
be used up. (In France, Shrove Tuesday is called Mardi Gras or
Fat Tuesday). This is
why we traditionally eat pancakes on
this day. In Scarborough they celebrate Shrove Tuesday by
skipping
(with skipping ropes) for a mile along the seafront - maybe
we should introduce this custom to Eastbourne!
There are all sorts of facts, rhymes and recipes to be found at:
http://homepages.tesco.net/~derek.berger/holidays/pancakeday.html
You'll find a classic Delia Smith recipe for pancakes
at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/database/basilpancakswithsuga_66226.shtml
There is also Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's Banana
and Toffee variation at:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/database/bananaandtoffeepanca_8834.shtml
Burns' Night
25 January
If you're planning a Burn's Night
Celebration, you might want to
look at this BBC page, which is packed
full of ideas
and info about it. The link is http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/history/burnsnight/suppers/index.shtml
You'll find everything you need to know,
from info about Robert Burns to how to cook haggis and
how to
address it (to find out what addressing the
haggis means, you'll need to look at the website!)
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