You’ve told us you really like the giveaways we feature on SpanglishBabyFinds. We love doing them –even if they are an insane amount of work — because this is our small way of constantly giving back for all that you give us every single day with your presence. Finding special items that enrich the life of your bilingual/bicultural child is one of the missions we take very, very seriously.
Today, we’re hosting our biggest, hugest, grandísimo, enorme giveaway ever! So big, we had to use a word such as “Extravaganza” for it. We’ve put together close to $600 in prizes of some of the products that we think would look divinos under any kid’s Holiday tree.
The best part? Only ONE person will take it all. Sí, ¡TODO! How’s that for holiday joy?
Wait! There’s another best part. We’re partnering up with Turning Leaves Foundation to encourage donations to their charity as an option to get additional entries to the giveaway. To learn more about the TLF mission and vision, please visit their brand new website.
I’ll stop right here, and just let the Extravaganza begin!
Barbie Toy Story 3 Made For Each Other Gift Set A close second to Spanish Buzz, or El Buzzo, as the funniest characters on Toy Story 3 are Barbie and Ken. Adding Ken to the Toy Story equation was close to genius and an ideal way to revive him through the mom´s memories of those all-day sagas we used to create featuring Barbie and Ken. Now, my girl sleeps with both of them in her bed. A classic couple that has come back as part of the cast of this year´s best film is sure to be a hot item on many kids wishlist this season. Find it in La Tiendita starting at $58.00 ~Ana L.
Disney Epic Mickey for Wii I have to admit it is a bit odd for us to have a game in the house that features Mickey and it’s being hidden away from our 3 year old girl. She’s definitely too young for the actual video game, and might be freaked out by the darker images of the Mouse who’s usually chirpy and in colorful Playhouses. As soon as she’s in bed, we’ve been sneaking out to grab the Wii controllers, turned magical paint brushes with the power to create or destroy, to get into this magical adventure of Epic proportions and artistic imagery. In Disney Epic Mickey for Nintendo Wii, Disney’s Interactive Studios take you in an adventure with a story that depends on completely on your actions. You will visit The Wasteland where you will run into characters from Disney’s early years, setting a tone of nostalgia to the game. All along, your magic paintbrush will set your game into play. Epic Mickey for Nintendo Wii is available via La Tiendita, starting at $43.99. ~Ana L.
Disney Sing It Family Hits I had no idea my family of three could throw such a rocking karaoke party by ourselves in our living room. Yet, that´s exactly what happens every time my 3 year old girl requests to play Disney Sing It Family Hits. The three of us end up singing and dancing up a storm. The video game, available for Wii and Playstation 3, comes with a microphone so your kid can instantly feel like a singing sensation. Your budding singer has a choice of songs from both classic and contemporary Disney hit movies, such as “Cinderella,” “Sleeping Beauty,” “Little Mermaid,” “Cars,” “Toy Story,” “Aladdin,” and many more. We do have a wishlist of songs we would have loved to see here, but, nevertheless, it’s been a hit. Available at La Tiendita, starting at $38.99. ~Ana L.
Fisher Price iXL Learning System for Preschoolers My daughter’s just at the border of the recommended age of 3-7 for use of the iXL 6-in-1 Learning System from Fisher Price, and she’s been having a blast with it. She will clearly be able to use and learn with it for years to come, thanks to how easy it is to customize the experience by uploading photos, songs, games and new software that transform the iXL into a new digital learning tool in my girl’s hands. Since we received it, it has been Camila’s go-to entertainment in the car. Because of the comfortable size and the use of a stylus pen for the touchscreen, she was able to quickly grasp how to use it on her own. Now, we love hearing her talk to it, giggle and sing when she’s playing with it. It has surely freed up my smartphone in the car for more useful things like Google Maps to get us to our destination! Available in three colors: Pink, Blue and Silver. Find it in La Tiendita, starting at $112.41. ~Ana L.
Muy Bueno Calendar Even if you’re like me and you lack culinary skills - to put it nicely – (or maybe especially if you’re like me), you’ll want to get your hands on this delicioso calendar which gathers a sample of Yvette Marquez Sharpnack’s authentic Mexican recipes, all featured on her Muy Bueno Cookbook blog, that have been passed along for over three generations.This 12-month calendar features mouth-watering photographs by Jeanine Thurston and the recipes selected will be featured in Yvette’s upcoming Muy Bueno Cook Book. The best part is that a portion of the proceeds from the sales of the calendar (at $18.00 each) will be donated to The Denver Foundation. Go here to stock up for those on your list. ~Roxana S.
Elmo’s A to Zoo Adventure + Cookie’s Counting Carnival I don’t think I’ve ever met a child who doesn’t like Sesame Street. Now there’s two fun and educational videogames with awesome graphics too! There are seventeen different games to entertain and challenge your child in Elmo’s A to Zoo Adventure videogame. The popular Sesame Street characters Elmo and Zoe give the directions and guide the play. I particularly liked the educational aspect of the games. The skills practiced range from letter identification, the learning of upper and lower case letters, the sounds of letters and even the formation of words. The games also targeted skills such as rhyming, color, and shape identification. You will have a chance to win both Elmo’s A to Zoo Adventure and Cookie’s Counting Carnival, in your choice of Wii, Nintendo DS or PC. You can also find them at La Tiendita for $29.99 each. ~Susan S.
2010 Holiday Barbie Collector’s Doll em>Bellísima is what I thought when I first saw the 2010 Holiday Barbie Collector Doll. Her dress, a snowy white gown with a red and gold bodice, is absolutely stunning. She also comes dressed with a red wrap, a gorgeous headpiece and chandelier earrings! In other words, she’s ready para las fiestas! Seeing her made me feel like playing with Barbies again, although I’m not too sure I’d actually play with this one. Whether you want to surprise your little girl with the most magnificent of dolls or you want to add this one to your collection – or maybe even get your collection started – this will surely make any doll-lover on your list incredibly happy! Grab her at La Tiendita for $40.95. ~Roxana S.
Hallmark Recordable Storybooks I absolutely love this idea of Recordable Storybooks from Hallmark and I think it works especially well for those of you who don’t have your extended family nearby. My sister, who is also my daughter’s godmother, travels a whole lot so she’s barely ever in town – and when she is, she lives in the mountains so it’s not like she can come over and read my daughter a bedtime story any night of the week. So when we got the recordable storybook from Hallmark, I immediately thought of her. She came over, recorded the story (she actually translated the text to Spanish in keeping with our mL@H method) and then gave it to my daughter who couldn’t hide her surprise when she heard her Tata’s (that’s what she calls my sister) voice reading a beautiful personalized book about a princess to her! The winner of this giveaway will be able to choose one of the 15 stories in the collection, including “The Night Before Christmas,” “The Very First Christmas,” “Guess How Much I Love You,” amongst others. At La Tiendita you’ll find them starting at $20.00. ~Roxana S.
Scholastic Treasury of 100 Storybook Classics #2 100 award-winning and classic children’s stories are faithfully adapted and brought to rich life in The Scholastic Treasury of 100 Storybook Classics #2, a comprehensive 17-DVD collection, the follow-up to the original best-selling treasury. There’s a story in here to match my daughter’s mood every day. The most-requested one has been Corduroy, followed by Giggle, Gigge Quack. Nine of the 100 stories come in Spanish, including Curious George Rides a Bike, Stone Soup and Where the Wild Things Are, a detail your bilingual niño will love because he will be able to understand every single story in the collection! This is one of those holiday gifts that will instantly become a favorite and will stay around for a while. The read-along feature helps these videos grow along with our kid´s abilities. The retail price of the set is $99.99, but La Tiendita has them starting at $48.49.~Ana L.
Fix-It and Forget-It Kids’ Cookbook It had never occurred to me that a perfect way to get kids safely in the kitchen–with no open flames or burning stoves–was to use the slow cooker. I recently discovered Fix-It and Forget-It Kids’ Cookbook: 50 Favorite Recipes to Make in a Slow Cooker by Phyllis Pellman Good. This simple and colorful cookbook offers kids the direction and encouragement they need to prepare easy-to-make, tasty meals—everything from main courses to snacks and even desserts. With full-page pictures to inspire your sight, and step-by-step format of the recipes, it is easy to be encourage to get together in the kitchen with the little ones.With recipes such as Easy Taco Filing , Tempting Tortilla Casserole and Gooey Chocolate Pudding Cake, the budding chef on your list will be back in the kitchen cooking up a storm. Get it at La Tiendita for $13.59.~Ana L.
Fix-It and Forget-It Christmas Cookbook I´ve been driving my friends crazy asking them for slow cooker recipes because I really need to learn to rely on the thing. With the Fix-It and Forget-It Christmas Cookbook: 600 Slow Cooker Holiday Recipes, by Phyllis Pellman Good, I got what I asked for, and too much more! The book is packed with 600 holiday recipes, but lacks in the pictures department. I always prefer my cookbooks to have good visuals, but what this one lacks in looks, it gives in content. Her Christmas recipes will fill your head with menu ideas, give you gentle guidance with each recipe, and deliver dishes that your friends and family will crave. The Fix-It and Forget It cookbooks have sold nearly 10 million copies. Fans credit the popularity of the cookbooks to their accessible recipes, geared to those with little time or confidence to cook….like me. Only $10.85 at La Tiendita.~Ana L.
Piñata Party Music CD Moona Luna is one band I want to see perform live. Yes, I did say I want to see a kid’s band because I am sure I would enjoy this music and live performance as much as my girl will. In fact, I would be such the groupie since I’d probably be singing all the songs out loud. I already do every time Moona Luna’s debut album “Piñata Party” is requested by my girl. She calls it “La Vaca” because of the colorful cow on the album’s cover. Moona Luna is led by singer-songwriter Sandra Velasquez, who’s better known as the lead of Latin-alternative band, Pistolera. Her bilingual CD for children, inspired after the birth of her daughter, has that alt-indie vibe to it but with a playfulness and energy level that instantly traps kids of any language or cultural heritage. Moona Luna’s CD fits perfectly in any stocking and can be found at La Tiendita for $9.87.~Ana L.
Music With Sara: Canciones en Español is extra special to us. Sara Quintanar is a Los Angeles musician and mom of two bilingual girls who leads very popular children’s music classes in the L.A. area. She’s also the bi-weekly music teacher at my daughter’s family daycare, where she takes her instruments and canciones en español for a preschooler rocking concert. This year, Sara recorded a CD, “Canciones en Español. Music With Sara.” with the help of kids in the Franklin Elementary Spanish Dual Language Immersion program. I can honestly say, it has been the most-played CD Camila has ever had. It got to the point where that was all she would let us play for her; even so, we never got bored of it. Sarah´s voice is captivating and her energy is released in every song. Go here to listen to the playlist and you will immediately recognize the talent the kids have no trouble adoring.~Ana L.
Rin, Rin, Rin, Do, Re, Mi Bilingual Book and CD Well-known and respected bilingual educator and children’s performer, Jose Luis Orozco, shares music that is meant to connect children with their heritage. Rin, Rin, Rin, Do, Re, Mi is perfect for kids 2-7 years old and those just learning to read both words and music. The book has gorgeous illustrations, the lyrics to the song, as well as a music sheet. It is all meant to be used in conjunction for a rich learning-language-through-music experience. Get both the book and the CD via La Tiendita.~Ana L.
World Christmas Party In classic Putumayo tradition, the World Christmas Party brings the sounds from around the globe to you in one CD. These 12 tracks of traditional Christmas songs are injected with sabor thanks to the collaborations of stars such as Poncho Sanchez, Ed Calle with Arturo Sandoval, María de Baroos and José Conde, amongst others. Picture yourself and your kids swaying hips and singing-out-loud while you blast these tunes and bring the fiesta to the Holiday celebrations. With a $12.86 price tag at La Tiendita, you want to snatch it now!~Ana L.
CROSSWORD BLOCKS A favorito from awesome bilingual toy maker, Ingenio. This one is basically a combination of blocks and crossword puzzles. Each of the 20 blocks has two letters and things that start with those particular letters in both Spanish and English. The blocks are pretty sturdy, the images on them colorful and the letters simple and legible. The game comes with six bilingual crossword puzzles in the following categories: el transporte, los animales de la granja, las mascotas, las frutas, la casa and el cuerpo all of which you can hopefully use to start teaching your niños how to spell. The blocks can also be used for what they are: building towers, in this case, word towers. One of the best things about Ingenio toys is that they are intended to grow with our children. We’ve had our for over a year and Vanessa still likes to play with it – especially know that she recognizes almost every letter in the alphabet! ind it at La Tiendita for $12.99. ~Roxana S.
MATH-O-MATIC Numbers are really not my thing, but my daughter – like most kids her age – seems to be intrigued by them. She’s been attracted to this particular bilingual game by Ingenio ever since we got it last year, but now that she recognizes the numbers, she likes it even more. The game comes with individual cards with the numbers from 1-20. They’re all two-sided and bilingual. On one side there’s just a large, colorful number. On the flip side is the word for that number in both English and Spanish as well as objects that correspond to each particular number.Once your child is ready to start learning basic math concepts you can introduce the 22 math cards which are basically a rectangle with an equation that’s missing one number or sign. Your child needs to use her budding math skills to “fill in the blank.” In the process, she’ll be learning number sequencing, addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. My 4-year-old daughter has already started with the addition and subtraction and she thinks it’s super fun! I hope she always feels like that. Find it at La Tiendita for $12.99. ~Roxana S.
Witty Planet DVD The Bubba interactive DVDs are ideal to fostering the little ones’ intellectual and sensory development and to expose non-spanish speaking children to the Spanish language in a fun way. All of Bubba’s DVDs, as well as the rest of the line, have been created by specialists in early childhood development. What Línea Descubriendo gets right is that the best way to engage children into learning language or any concepts through the use of media is to get them involved with what they are watching and listening. The images, the puppets, the short sequences and the songs make it all come to life and, in our case, got my girl dancing and repeating what she was hearing. The winner will get to pick one of the five DVDs in the catalog. A perfect gift to foster the love of Spanish on a child. Find it for $16.99 at the Witty Planet store.~Ana L.
Thomas the Tank Engine Party Package Thomas the Tank Engine has just been nominated for Toy Property of the Year. The 2011 winner will be announced at an awards ceremony to be held before the start of American International Toy Fair on Saturday, February 12, 2011 at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City. This is the first time voting for TIA’s “Toy of the Year” categories will be open to the public. You can vote for Thomas the Tank Engine by visiting www.toyawards.org.
THE HOLIDAY GIVEAWAY EXTRAVAGANZA!
Update: We have a winner!!! Congratulations to KALEN, who won with comment #99! We are excited that one of our most loyal readers won such a huge giveaway, and that her winning comment was from a donation to Turning Leaves Foundation. It all comes full circle. Thanks to all who participated!
We have one item of each of the products we reviewed on this post to give away to one winner. Yes, ONE person will take them ALL. A retail value of almost $600 of crazy, cool holiday gifts. To enter, please leave a comment telling us how you inject your culture and traditions into your Holiday celebrations.
That’s all you have to do to enter this giveaway. If you want to up your chances at winning, and support a charity this holiday season, then this is how you can get additional entries (only after you’ve completed the step above): **Please leave a separate comment for each so we can count them and avoid mistakes.
1.Donate a minimum of $5 to Turning Leaves Foundation and help give children and their families the educational and emotional group support needed to cope with the demands that chronic illness imposes. Just click on the PayPal button below and it will take you to their donations page. You will get THREE additional entries for the donation. You must leave three different comments saying you did so.
2. Follow us on Twitter and tweet about this giveaway including a link to the post and @SpanglishBaby. Copy the link to the tweet in an additional comment on the giveaway’s post.
This giveaway ends Sunday, December 12 at midnight EST and you must have a valid US address to enter.
Disclosure: We received a sample of the products to review. All opinions reflected are our own.
In order to incoporate Colombian culture into our holidays I have my house decorated with a nativity set and explain to my son what the meaning is. We do the novenas (called posadas in Mexico) and sing villancicos (Christmas Carols). My son has been thought about Santa and Baby Jesus and he combines the American way with the Colombia way
I follow you on twitter
I have donated to the foundation under the email monica zapata at hotmail dot com
Link to tweet: http://twitter.com/monicazyoung/status/12608415809404928
I donated
Now wouldn’t it be nice to win some of this stuff!!!! =)
I’ve twitted!!!
I try my best to find people that would celebrate Christmas at Midnight!! as my family did it in Peru. It has been difficult to find it. Last year I was very lucky!!! this year still looking!!
. But either way, if I find someone or is only me. My family (my husband, my son and me) will be awake at 12 to get our stockings, which is the American tradition and we’ll be eating!!!. Can’t wait.
This will be amazing to win! We sing villancicos, have a belén, do Reyes Magos (also Santa but they only get something small), I make traditional Spanish sweets and some of my mums Christmas dishes that we all enjoy back home.
I am part of a group of local Queens, NY families who have joined forces to celebrate the holidays and show our children what celebrating “La Navidad” is all about for us Bilingual Spanish families.
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Posadas, posadas, posadas. We go to as many posadas as possible and indulge in all the deliciosa comida – nothing like some champurado or ponche with some tamalitos to get us in the holiday spirit. Beyond that we listen to musica navideña in the car. My chiquitilina is too little to sing along, but I’m hoping listening now will help create fond memories. But, best of all this year we get to go to Mexico for Christmas, doesn’t get better than that!
I donated
I donated – thanks for the opportunity!
I donated – felizes fiestas!
I don’t think we really inject anything, we do make the kids carol at the nursing home each year, but they seem to enjoy it.
Every ornament on our christmas tree was made or gifted to me by my four boys. We started in kindergarten and my oldest is now 28. Now my granddaughter has added her handmade ornament to the tree. I love my tree
my husband & i are American but live in Mexico with our Mexican born 2 year old. This year we bought a real Christmas tree and plan to make homemade stocking and stuff them with things like candy, books, oranges, socks, etc.
I tweeted! http://twitter.com/#!/ourarmswideopen/status/12673707881271297
Great Giveaway! Thanks for all your hardwork!
We do lots of things to inject culture and traditions into the holiday season. Most importantly, all the food! We eat basic American foods and make sure to incorporate lots of my husband’s traditional Mexican foods. We eat Rosca on Dia de los Reyes Magos, Pozole on New Year’s, the last few years we’ve made tamales for Christmas. We also do American things like Gingerbread and Sugar cookies for Santa. Drink Eggnog and Abuelita hot chocolate. We celebrate with Santa Claus and Los Reyes Magos. I hope as our kids get older we can incorporate more traditions that have to do with giving and less to do with receiving- my kids are definitely very excited about the presents this year. I bought the Night Before Christmas book to start reading to them and should find a Spanish Christmas story to share each year at this time.. We will be celebrating a bit on Christmas Eve like my husband’s family does and also on Christmas day as my family does.
Don’t know that we have any cultural traiditons but as a Catholic, we have many, many traditions from our Advent wreath, Jesse Tree, our wise men from the nativity start in another room and make their way to the nativity. Baby Jesus doesn’t come until Christmas. We keep our tree up until the Epiphany when the wise men finally make their way.
Follow you on Twitter and tweeted http://twitter.com/chipdip2010/status/12681262376423425
Wow! … I’m almost speechless by the size of this giveaway!
The way we inject culture into our holidays is to follow many of the traditions my husband grew up with. For example, we don’t place the baby Jesus in the Nativity until Christmas eve, (in my family we had always put it in there for the entire month.)… We also attend the sunrise service for the Virgin of Guadalupe to sing Las Mañanitas and stay to eat pozole and tamales afterward. Last year I learned about the Rosca de Reyes here on SpanglishBaby, and I made it. We loved it so much that we will do it again this year. We have also participated in Las Posadas which was a lot of fun, and this year I hope to teach my kids to sing Los Peces en el Río – one of my very favorite songs.
Nosotros tambien started doing LAS POSADAS! With other families from Monterrey, Mexico. We go around our block singing “En el nombre del cieloooo…”. And we take our Peregrinos: Maria y Jose. Blyss and Allegra are just learning the songs.
I have been trying to cook traditional dishes my mom used to cook for me around Christmas time when I was growing up.
We have a book called La Navidad which we have been reading every night. And of course we sing and dance El Burrito Sabanero every time we can.
The abuelos are coming to celebrate Christmas with us this year so we will be eating tamales until we burst.
We are a mish-mosh of various ethnic backgrounds in our family, so we feel pretty free to grab any traditions and customs that grab our attention! We love Christmas music from around the world, and this year we have a young woman from Peru living with us, so we’re excited to add some Peruvian traditions to our repertoire!
Well, my family is multi-cultural. And I don’t do turkey…So I make a Christmas dinner that includes many different foods, like Mexican, Italian, Hungarian, Swedish…It’s always delicious!! Thank you so much for the chance to win. I am pregnant and on bedrest with an 11 month old and a 10 year old. This year money is tight and we can’t afford any gifts for our kids. This would be a blessing!
We pass down the traditions that my family celebrated when I was a young girl with my children now.
My daughter likes Dora, so we listen to some Christmas songs in Spanish
itsjustme62613 at gmail.com
follow and tweeted
http://twitter.com/MistySunrise/status/12837865708855298
itsjustme62613 at gmail.com
My husband and I have been able to blend our holiday traditions fairly well. His family gets together on Christmas Eve for what was the feast of the seven fishes. Now they don’t quite do 7 fishes anymore but the night does include several fish dishes. We also get together with them on Christmas (my family lives to far away to celebrate with them). To bring in some of my families traditions, I bake cookies with my kids and I make homemade bread to bring to Christmas dinner. A tradition we had in common was loading up in the car, playing Christmas songs (we each have a favorite CD we listen to) and heading out to check out Christmas light decorations with the kids.
I DECORATE THE TREE ANY WAY I WANT NOW…I HAVE NOT PARTICULARE HERITAGE
Wow. This is a HUGE giveaway! Thank you for the chance
We are Scandinavian by heritage and we do celebrate Christmas with a tree, advent calendar, nativity, stockings, cookies and LEFSE…lots and lots of lefse. Our boys love the advent calendar, to count down the days until Christmas and find a treat behind each door every day. We also do a little reading from an advent book at dinner time and then work on the games and puzzles in the book after that, as a learning experience.
Thank you again!
Tweeted!
“If I were to win this HUGE giveaway @spanglishbaby, I may pass out. Kid Christmas shopping:DONE – http://ow.ly/3mteG (& for a great cause)”
Like Heather who left a comment before me, my family is Scandanavian. We have a lefse-making party every year and buy pickled herring to snack on during the holiday season. We also buy the kids advent calendars every year so they can count down the days until Christmas.
Made a donation. (comment #1)
donation comment #2
donation comment #3
now I’m crossing my fingers and toes
We make sure that we make/eat some food of our culture — mostly scandanavian. We’ve already found out our daughter is a fan of lefsa, so that works out well : )
We also spend time with friends and family, We like to read books and we also try to explain to a 3 yrs old about la Navidad. We like to see our neighbors houses with lights, cant have so many lights in my house.
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I tweeted! http://twitter.com/#!/ahappymom
We follow the same traditions I did as a child – family dinner on Christmas Eve, candlelight service at church, reading of Night Before Christmas before going to bed, etc. We’ve made a few of our own traditions along the way!
Our tradition of opening one gift on Christmas Eve each will continue forever. It’s nice to be able to sit down in the front of the tree that evening after all the running around is done and share that quiet – special moment with each other.
We definately incorporate my husbands heritage (Italian) into our Holidays. We serve Lasagna on Christmas, and put out Antipasto platters. We have a rather large collection of Italian Santa clauses. And we do the Urn of Fate.
Thanks for the chance.
mogrill@comcast.net
We have out the nativity scene which is used in the US, but is in most homes in Latin America. My mother always cooks some Panamanian dishes to include in our Christmas lunch. This is really making me think about more ways to incorporate culture into our Christmas celebration…thanks for making the wheels spin!
(And for sharing all the goodies!!)
Our decorations are bilingual and I use a mix of English and Spanish-language Christmas music. And…we’ll actually be visiting Peru for Christmas this year!
We are American, so we have the typical American traditions of decorating the tree, the advent calendar, making cookies, etc. However, my grandparents are Czech and when we go to their house, we do celebrate traditional Czech cooking! It’s fun!
we have a huge tamale day extravaganza where we make 30-40 lbs of masa. and then we always read tghe xmas story so they dont forget the real meaning of xmas.
Some of the traditions that I’ve continued as I had children have been the celebration of the Dia de los Reyes Magos, rosca and all. As for Christmas- well, we sing villancicos, have a grand dinner during Nochebuena and do not open gifts until after midnight (if anyone can actually stay up). I also like to make Tamales for New Years.
We celebrate the holidays by doing those things we recall from our own childhood. Reading the Christmas Story, listeing to carols and have a wonderful Christmas time
http://twitter.com/HMB99/status/13031529479409664
HMB99 follows on twitter
This is what we do:
• reading a lot of bilingual/bicultural children’s lit with holidays themes (posadas, navidad, dia de los reyes),
• I’m careful to take the time to talk about my experiences as a child and the traditions that my familia kept,
• doing arts and crafts that center around our cultural holidays,
• exploring lessons plans and activities that discuss these times,
• cooking (Mexican & Spanish) dishes typically served during the holidays,
• and anything else that I can think of!
Gracias, Amigas!
Un abrazo…
We never open presents till xmas morning!!
Merry Xmas! Thanks!
Janna Johnson
jannajanna@hotmail.com
janna@feedyourpigblog.com
http://www.feedyourpigblog.com
We will start a new tradition this year since we recently moved away from the family however, they will be in our hearts
In our family, for the holidays we always celebrate them at my mothers house. all of the grown up brings one dish or game , idea , or tradition with them . like my mother makes my great grandmothers fudge , my niece brings traditional Hispanic holiday foods and games , I bring small Irish gifts for the children, ect. …. We always explain the history behind the items/traditions we bring.. The children and entire family love it and everyone always learns something new !
I tweeted –
http://twitter.com/#!/peachis31/status/13071222946398208
Music!!! I have tons of CD’s with Christmas music from PR. We also celebrate on January 6 el Dia de Reyes:)
We try, as best as possible, to open our gifts on midnight. Throughout the month of December we celebrate our cultures (mexican, chileian, japanese and bolivian). Tamales were always an important component of Christmas when I was a child, so we read Too Many Tamales by Gary Soto and include it in our christmas dinner.
Navidad is such an amazing time, my children enjoy decorating the xmas tree, lights, and playing with there fisher price nativity set and anxiously await the birth of “jesucito.” We incorporate our mexican traditions of tamales, bunuelos, empanadas, champurrado and enjoy both traditional english/spanish xmas carols.
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I donated:)
My husband nor myself grew up with any traditions other than the Christmas day visit to the grandparents’ house. We have started traditions with our children. The Saturday after Thanksgiving we all go to the tree farm to pick the perfect tree and we spend the day decorating. On December 1st, we pull out the advent calendar to kick off the holdiay season. Christmas Eve, everyone get new pajamas and the children hang their stockings that I made for them.
Hi everyone! Just wanted to mention that not all Spanish-speaking families are Christian. We are a Latin American family and we are all Jewish! So Happy Hanukah to those other Jews out there and Feliz Navidad if you happen to be Christian!
We go to our church for the Christmas Celebration and to hear the kids from the school sing Christmas carols.
luckylady4163@yahoo.com
I follow you on Twitter and I tweeted.
http://twitter.com/LUCKYLADY4663/status/13302004147294209
luckylady4163@yahoo.com
Festejamos la noche buena y abrimos los regalos después de las 12 de la noche. Our dinner is 100% argentinian style.
Te sigo en twitter y envi[e twitt: http://twitter.com/#!/MamaXXI/status/13323921046634496
follow the family christian traditions we have followed for years
I grew up in an American household and my husband grew up in a Mexican household so we love the blending of each of our family’s traditions! My family always does a gift exchange with a huge turkey dinner, his does midnight gifts with tamales and posole! Usually we try to make the rounds at each of our family’s houses but we also love bringing them all together at ours. My family has learned to LOVE the food and his has learned to love the simplicity at our house.
Christmas eve we make tamales and have a Mexican dinner. We sing Christmas carols in Spanish.
I donated in Tati’s name since she is giving birth at this moment.
Her mother,
Gingerannbeck
Tati’s donation #2
Tati’s donation #3
I will spend Christmas with Tati and we will share many of our memories of Christmas in Colombia.
Donated to a wonderful cause.
What a good idea to have us donate.
And it would be fun to win from donating
Would love to win for one of my grandchildren this year. Will be having Christmas songs in Spanish. Thank you!!!!!!!!!!
We open gifts on Christmas Eve instead of Christmas Day, and we serve traditional Italian and Polish foods to represent the differet cultures in our family. Thanks!
I incorporate the various traditions I’ve picked up through travels and life experiences, from hanging family ornaments on the tree, to celebrating New Year’s as the Russians do, to attending our very first posada this week.
As Catholic Christians, we attend Midnight Mass each year and use an Advent Wreath in our home.
We take our son to church and try to instill the true meaning of Christmas.
Thanks for the giveaway! Merry Christmas!
imjessica(at)mail(dot)com
We inject our different cultures into our celebrations by eating traditional meals throughout the holiday season. I love asking our older relatives for their favorite recipes and trying out new ones every year. Thanks so much for the chance to win the awesome prize pack!
I follow on Twitter @krstrpp and tweeted: http://twitter.com/#!/krstrpp/status/13612372803457024
Having such a big family and coming from multi-culture backgrounds it seemed that the kids and I were always at our wits end trying to include everyone and everything. A few years ago I decided to make our own traditions. We celebrate the 25 days a christmas. Every day of Dec. we do some kind of craft,cook a special food,and open a present.
We listen to bilingual Christmas songs
To incorporate different cultures into our holidays we read about a different countries traditions each night for the two weeks before Christmas!
Twitter follower and tweeted!! http://twitter.com/#!/caseydeuce/status/13660246631256064
I don’t know if it’s “culture” or more tradition but, my family does most of our presents and food on Christmas eve. Also, we read the nativity story and go to church to celebrate with our church family.
twitter @kaiasmommy
http://twitter.com/#!/kaiasmommy/status/13661953419378688
We include certain Polish traditions like traditional food, midnight mass and songs.
Since my granddaughter is adopted from Guatamala, her parents always purchase something from her home country every Christmas to support the country and also show her her heritage. Sometimes it is a wall hanging or maybe just a flag, but the money from the purchase goes to the crafters.
We are Polish and break oplatek ( Christmas wafer ) before the holiday feast!
We are Irish & Native American and we always cook my grandmother’s recipes for the holidays – and since we are from Texas, and I’m sure we have a little Mexican American in us somewhere along the line, we always have tamales for Christmas!
Follow on Twitter: tesashel and tweeted about the awesome giveaway here: http://twitter.com/tesashel/statuses/13707186614050816
I donated!
I donated to the charity!
Thanks for the giveaway! I donated!
I tweeted! kalenjones
Check out this great giveaway at @spanglishbaby ! http://www.spanglishbaby.com/2010/12/holiday-giveaway-extravaganza/#comment-14850
send lots of holiday cards, decorate the place and bake lots of goodies!
We decorate inside and outside the whole 2 weeks up to Christmas. We open Gifts Christmas morning and then start cooking. Our whole family comes and we spend the day together. We play games, sing carols, and just enjoy being together.
tdlsfm(at)gmail(dot)com
We have a half Hispanic household so we always incorporate that into our traditional ‘Texan’ holiday. For our holiday dinner we have the usual ham, turkey, and fixings along with tamales, menudo, empanadas, etc…
I follow on Twitter @eswright18 and tweeted
http://twitter.com/#!/eswright18/status/13754215235063809
We really enjoy our Irish heritage too, so every Christmas eve, we like to exchange an Ireland-related gift.
We always have some sort of Native American dish, it all depends on what we all agree on that year.
This year we have all agreed it will be Indian tacos.
Learning about different cultures is very important to our family. We make sure to share family friendly documentaries about other cultures and people, and make them holiday specific to the time of year. Thank you for the lovely giveaway.
sewmuchstuff at ymail dot com
I’m a twitter follower (@sewmuchstuff) and I tweeted
http://twitter.com/SewMuchStuff/status/13781631722586112
sewmuchstuff at ymail dot com
Because of my Japanese mother, I make soba noodles and mochi for New Year’s.
I am a very big believer of keeping family traditions alive. From chopping down the Christmas cookies to using a special table cloth at dinner.
We celebrate Christmas and the Holidays as we celebrate our life together…totally immersed in combining culture, traditions, love,food, and language among other things from all sides of our families! My Hubs is Mexican, now Mexican-American and I am American with Czech Ancestry! I noticed another of your Readers ( Vanessa ) is Czech also! Yaay! WE speak Spanish and English in our house with a few Czech words and phrases thrown in and some Japanese that I picked up along the way. We are always learning and accepting new cultures, foods and everything that goes with the experience of living in such a diverse World. We make lots ot traditional Mexican foods during the Holidays( and every day ) and share them with the non-Mexican members of our families too! We add on the American and the Czech and just laugh and party! We LOVE it!
We celebrate christmas eve with my family. This includes my five brothers and sisters along with all our kids and many friends that we invite. We all help my mom make many of the brazilian dishes that she grew up with and munch on them all night! Mind you, we love this since she only makes this once a year! We visit with friends that come to visit and everyone enjoys the food, entertainment, and company of family!
I follow on twitter (pauline15) and tweeted: http://twitter.com/pauline15/status/13858511490392064
We follow the traditions of my family when I was a boy. Nothing real special.
My husband is adopted and his parents always incorporated cultural traditions from his homeland of Brazil. I think it is wonderful that they honored his birth mother’s wishes in this way. On every Birthday and Christmas they give him at least one gift that is related to his Brazilian culture.
I try to carry on the same traditions with my children that I remember as a child.
We bake a birthday cake for Jesus on Christmas Eve. We invite friends and family over to join us in celebrating Jesus’ birthday.
We don’t have a ton of cultural traditions that we bring into the holidays although we do like to inject other cultures into ours during the season by trying new foods from different cultures. We also go to midnight mass. As a future teacher, I am always incorporating different cultures into ideas to teach especially by reading books and doing art projects.
I sing “villancicos” that I learned as a child from my Colombian relatives. One of them is called “Vamos Pastores Vamos”.
I follow you on Twitter and tweeted-http://twitter.com/mami2jcn/status/13994043885223936
I celebrate with my kids by baking, sharing the goodies, reading Christmas stories, watching Chrismas movies, listening to Christmas music. Our main celebration is attending Christmas eve candlelight church service. I love our celebrations.
My family has pretty traditional American traditions. My boyfriend’s family makes some interesting dishes of Spanish heritage that we like to incorporate.
we include certain foods that my grammy used to make from germany
ardelong2(at)gmail(dot)com
Christmas Eve is a big deal in our house, we have a late dinner with turkey and tasty desserts, and also cook “farofa”, using cassava flour, as a side dish.
We have no traditions and no culture. We just kind of do whatever we feel like. It may not be romantic or educational or whatever, but its how we do it. Thanks for the giveaway, there are about 8 different people that would get presents out of the prize pack if I win.
One of our holiday traditions is baking cookies. All the females in the family will be gathering at my home next week to make several different kinds of cookies together. We’ll even be decorating Gingerbread houses.
We make German Cookies as my Grandmother used to make them
deb55106{at}gmail{dot}com
Our family is made up of different cultures so our celebration goes from Chanukah to Christmas. From potato pancakes to the 7 fishes, from spinning the dreidl to singing Silent Night.
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Tweet!~
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We have always had a tradition of making one of great grandmas recipes with our holiday meal. each year my sister and I take turns choosing one now that mom doesn’t cook anymore.
I am Italian and the first ornament on my tree is my “Befana” and I read my Befana story to my kids every year.
We cook special dishes such as mushroom soup, palacinky, drum cake, perioges for the family or make them together. Church at midnight, presents in the morning.
Tweeted here: http://twitter.com/dresdenrain/status/14119029086097409
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Our tradition goes into what we cook for our meal. We ensure that the meal is the same every time.
trippyjanet at hotmail dot com
I follow on twitter and tweeted
http://twitter.com/#!/trippyjanet/status/14125519624732672
trippyjanet at hotmail dot com
The main way we inject culture is with food. Certain things must be made EVERY year and those recipes are handed down through the generations.
We sing, decorate, and of course church. Kellyandjosh@aol.com
For News Year day, we have black-eyed peas and collard greens
Christmas is all about family traditions. My whole family gets together for our annual cookie exchange where we eat lunch and the young ones decorate the cut out cookies while we visit. We still hang up our stockings, even though my children are adults with families of their own, and Santa leaves a little something in it plus fruit and nuts. And my all time favorite tradition is a new pair of Christmas pajamas to wear to bed Christmas Eve.
Well I am Irish and I love leaving the candle in the window to light the way of the Holy Family or travllers…but other then that nothing besides putting up the tree
to be honest we just have fun watching holiday movies and shows on christmas eve and doing lots of baking of cookies,cupcakes,brownies and cream puffs. christmas morning we get up bright and early and exchange gifts
I have a family celebration on Christmas eve with food, gifts and games.
Our family usually gets together on Christmas Eve and we open our gifts. Christmas morning we attend church and then have a nice dinner, afterwards. Thanks for having a great giveaway.
I have both Mexican and Chinese ancestry so the foods are prevalent this time of year. We make Chinese almond cookies and Mexican biscochos to share with others.
My husband is Mexican and one thing we like to do is sing Christmas songs in Spanish with the kids. We try to keep them aware of the different cultures they come from and we feel the language is an important part of it.
ceemlovee at yahoo dot com
My father in law is from Mexico, came here in 1979 & for some reason, raised his children with none of the glorious & beautiful culture he came from. My MIL never showed an interest, either, so it wasn’t until I married my husband that he started celebrating some of his culture at Christmas. It’s important to me that my kids get to celebrate this part of themselves!
So now, we spend Christmas Eve with my husband’s family. I make pozole & tamales. We then watch movies while snuggled up with hot chocolate, spiced with dried peppers, that I was taught to make by my neighbor in Mexico when we stayed there as a child. Mmmm.
I love how when we cook, we are not only sharing the foods of our cultures, but we tell the stories & memories we relate to the cooking of those meals. I have learned the most marvelous things about my FIL’s family while we cook together. Stories he never told his own children. We can not truly know who we are, without knowing the people that came before us.
I tweeted here: http://twitter.com/#!/Leighbra/status/14182338044887040
Thank you so so so much for this. Happy holidays!
We do a lot of things we did as kids with our children. Every Christmas Eve we make fritelle together, play games and watch midnight mass from Rome.