Making Festive Memories With Your Kids

Making Festive Memories With Your Kids - Parenting Like Hannah
Everyday Confetti by Karen Ehman and Glynnis Whitwer

I haven’t done the official scientific research, but I am pretty sure some people are just born with a knack for entertaining. Others can entertain and be highly creative at the same time. For most though, entertaining and throwing parties can be very stressful. Involving children adds to the stress, because now you also feel the need to entertain as well as provide food, decor and a location. Many women give up and hope they can afford party places when the need arrises.

Some of the most special childhood memories are attached to the celebrations had with family and friends. Kids can often tell you very specific details about parties and dinners long after you have forgotten. There is a part in all of us that cherishes celebrating the blessings in life. How many of those memories are your children missing, because you aren’t sure what to do?

Karen Ehman and Glynnis Whitwer wrote Everyday Confetti: Your Year-Round Guide to Celebrating Holidays and Special Occasions to encourage women and moms everywhere to celebrate regularly with their families. Their book covers the major holidays, as well as many minor ones. They even include ideas for non-holiday celebrations.

This book is a great introductory book for women who want simple ideas for activities and recipes. If you already celebrate and entertain a lot, much of this book will not be quite out-of-the-box enough for you. The ideas vary from one or two for an event to several pages. Some celebrations include recipes and others merely give you some details you may not have known about the holiday (I learned a few new things about St. Patrick and the original ways to celebrate).

Since this is basically a book for beginners, I think a few photos and some ideas for decorations and more games would have been helpful. As far as the recipes, some sounded interesting, but there were a few too many calling for condensed soup for my personal taste. It also would have been nice to balance the amount of material for each holiday a little more. Some of the more interesting obscure holidays only got a paragraph, when I could think of several pages of fun things to do.

If you haven’t been celebrating much in your house because you lack confidence or ideas, this is a good beginner book for you. I think you will find the suggestions will be easy enough for you to execute without a lot of stress. I hope you will use some of the ideas and begin celebrating with your children. They won’t remember any mistakes. If they do, those are often the most cherished family stories.

For those of you who were born to entertain creatively, this isn’t the book for you. Keep using your own ideas and Pinterest. While a little of the material would be interesting, I don’t think you would find enough to justify the cost of the book. I applaud you for giving your children happy memories of celebrating life’s special moments with friends and family. Keep it up! I know it can get tiring at times, but your children will have happy childhood memories to last a lifetime. Remember though, not everything has to be over-the-top. Sometimes our kids just want quiet family celebrations, too.

What’s your favorite family celebration? Please share it with the rest of us in a comment below. Maybe we can incorporate it in our own families, too.

This book was provided to me for free by the publisher in return for my honest review. It is a solid book for those just beginning to entertain, but not a favorite for those of us who entertain a lot. This post includes an affiliate link for your convenience. It does not cost you anything to click on it or add to your cost should you decide to purchase. The merchant does provide a very small compensation to help support this blog.

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Thereasa Winnett

Thereasa Winnett is the founder of Teach One Reach One and blogger at Parenting Like Hannah. She holds a BA in education from the College of William and Mary. She has served in all areas of ministry to children and teens for more than thirty years and regularly leads workshops for ministries and churches. She has conducted numerous workshops, including sessions at Points of Light’s National Conference on Volunteering and Service, the National Urban Ministry Conference, Pepperdine Bible Lectures, and Lipscomb’s Summer Celebration. Thereasa lives in Atlanta, GA with her husband Greg, where she enjoys reading, knitting, traveling and cooking.

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