webpage update:- craft fair

I finally managed to update my webpage a little. These are pictures from a craft fair that was hosted by the kids' school in celebration of an Cultural Cultural Fair.

Craft fair

I really enjoy having the kids overseas in a multicultural environment. It was good when they were in their small, Irish managed school the last few years.. the kids were from all over. But now that they are in the big school, the international flavor is really enhanced. The kids, the parents, the teachers.. everyone has influence.

There are Dutch children in Honor's pre-K class and their parents gave a little presentation, told stories, etc. about Sinterklaas last week. All the kids brought in a shoe last week to leave by their (homemade) fireplace for Sinterklaas to leave a treat. I guess all the kids in class had been pretty good.. they found oranges and a bag of ?Kroidnoten? (small ginger cookies) in their shoes the next day :-)

Wiki this

Brian's class rec'd Hannakah gifts from one child's family in his class. They also shared poems on Kwanzaa and stories about Eid al-Adha (next week), and of course, both of the Christmases celebrated locally... Dec 25th, and Coptic Christmas, which will be a little later... not sure of the date. A project that they just finished up was an International food fest. Brian had a project to create a map of his home country filled in with pictures, and we had to supply a recipe that was traditional to our culture. Brian did a great job on his USA...

It was a little more difficult to come up with a traditional recipe of our culture... what is that?? Tex-Mex? Egg Foo Yung? Pilau rice? I finally came up with Banana Nut Bread (because in Florida we had banana trees and tons of bananas), and a pizza dough recipe that we got off the internet because our family 'culture' is to move around all over the place, sometimes lacking our personal property for long periods of time, and we so we 'make do' with what we find wherever we are. The 2nd grade team then compiled the recipes... with illustrations by the kids.. and printed up cookbooks with all the recipes as Christmas gifts for the parents.

I remember touching on different holiday celebrations when I was in school, but not as personalized as my children are seeing it. Yes, they are in an international school and my perspective may be skewed, but I do think 'alternatives' to the mainstream celebrations are becoming more open and acceptable than they used to be... at least I hope so! And rose-tinted or not, I'm going to keep this perspective :-) - every little bit of positive energy helps.

Happy Holidays - all of them!!