Literacy - Yours For the Holidays 2025
The LLSC team shares how literacy plays a role in their holidays...
December 14 to December 22 - Chanukah
Jeremy M - Cultural/UDL/Storytelling
When I was very young, my mother held a Chanukah party for my pre-school classmates. She invented her version of the game "Chanukah Bingo," creating a board and hand illustrating all of the cards and tiles. My mother included as part of the game a latke (potato pancake), dreidel, menorah, but also historical figures like Judah Maccabee and his father Matathias (among other images). We still have this game at my parents' house, and we play it on Chanukah.
I also recall coming in from the cold (back when December felt cold where I grew up), and looking at the candle lights. It sometimes snowed on Chanukah, which made the holiday somehow more special to me. When I was 8, I wanted to see if I could have an electric menorah to place in my window similar to the electric candles our neighbors used for Christmas. My mother found one and gave it to me as a Chanukah gift. We still have it and it still works.
It was also a tradition for my mother to read us stories from Singer's collection Stories for Children. I first listened to "The Parakeet Named Dreideil" when my mother read it to me from that book. It's a story I adore because the first time she read it was the same year we adopted our beloved family parakeet "Pip."
The text referenced is the story (also a picture book) "The Parakeet Named Dreidel" by the Nobel Prize Winner Isaac Bashevis Singer. Singer is the only Nobel laureate who wrote in Yiddish.
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781466894587/theparakeetnameddreidel
Sending Christmas Letters
Kathreine K
As the calendar flips to the last month, I like to indulge myself by drifting back over the days passed and memories made along the way in the previous year. Pictures and reminiscences help fuel my annual Christmas letter that gets sent in a festive card or personalized email. Some years it flows from month to month, at times I have dabbled in poetry, but often it is just a summing up of the events that shaped the year in passing.
While the custom of sending Christmas cards has waned in recent years for many people, I still enjoy sitting down to reminisce about days gone by. When I was a child, I always loved seeing the colourful cards strung up in our house, but the older I get, the more I cherish that little bit of connection with people who have crossed my path at some point in my life. I might not see some of them regularly, or even from one year to the next, but just thinking about them reminds me of the mark they have left, and it fills my heart. A life touches so many, and that is a beautiful gift.
Regardless of who returns the favour, I enjoy the process of reliving good moments and reflecting on the ones which held more challenges. Because I know only too well that the more challenging moments help us see and appreciate the good, and ending the year on a positive note just feels like the right thing to do for me.
May your memories warm you!
For fun, here is a post from an unknown (to us!) writer and reader, who itemizes the format for a personal holiday letter:
https://jamierubin.net/2011/12/12/10-simple-steps-for-creating-an-annual-holiday-letter/
December 24 - Christmas Eve Story
Sherry L - Reading/Storytelling
We have created a few family traditions of our own around Christmas Eve, when we open one gift (now a book!) and spend time around our decorated tree, listening to a chapter of Stuart McLean’s Christmas at the Vinyl Cafe being read out loud, while nibbling on a cookie and sipping hot chocolate or tea. Before Stuart McLean’s, we went through many classic storybooks with fantastic illustrations and tales about reindeer, great trains, and nutcrackers. What will we do when we finish this book? Find another!
Here's a story from Stuart McLean as published by Canadian Living:
December 24 - JOLABOKAFLOD
Sherry L - Reading/Literacy
Until 2023, on Christmas Eve, our family would open one gift of pajamas. A fun thing that gave us fresh "jammies" to wear on Christmas morning. However, this year, we have decided to take on a tradition from Iceland and exchange books on Christmas Eve instead.
The Icelandic Christmas Eve tradition of Jólabókaflóð, or "Christmas Book Flood," is a cherished cultural practice, rooted in the nation's love for literature. In Iceland, ‘book flood’ is celebrated on Christmas Eve and revolves around giving and receiving new books, often accompanied by delicious treats like hot cocoa. The night is spent in the company of loved ones, reading and sharing stories, creating memories that last a lifetime.
As a family, we love books and reading! We even have our tree set up in the library. We can't wait to experience the comfort and joy of reading with each other, on a quiet night, before the bustle and social activities of Christmas Day.
Learn more about this Icelandic tradition (including how to pronounce Jólabókaflóðat) at https://adventures.is/blog/iceland-christmas-eve-tradition
Holiday Baking
Kate G - Math/Numeracy and Culinary Literacy
I love to bake shortbread cookies during the holidays. When my children were younger, they would help measure out the ingredients, stir everything together and roll out the dough. They really enjoyed using the different cookie-cutter shapes and adding sprinkles to the unbaked cookies. Decades later, they still enjoy the process!
Click here for great pie recipes - Enjoy!
Road Trip Word Games
Summer B - Literacy/Puzzles
The holidays often involve road trips to visit family and friends, and we put a lot of kilometres on our car every season! To help keep long road trips interesting, we play a variety of “car games.” A family favourite involves looking at the license plates of the cars travelling around us and making up words from the letters they contain. ATLW 124 becomes “outlaw,” and we find the word “entrance” in CERN 567. We compete to see how many words we can get from each license plate! It’s a great way to make the drive go faster and build our literacy and creativity skills at the same time!
Here's a link to a word game called Wordle published by the NY Times:
https://www.nytimes.com/games/wordle/index.html
One play per day is free. Have fun!
