Holiday Post By Aidan

Still Winter in MNMJI Photos (Mary J. I.) via Compfight

In the fall and winter there are many holidays. These holidays are: Halloween, Thanksgiving, Veterans Day, Christmas, New Year’s, Hanukkah, etc… So in these two months there are lots of holidays in fact there are actually about 34 holidays.
My family and I family celebrate Halloween, New Year’s , Hanukkah and Christmas. We don’t celebrate religiously so we don’t get a Christmas tree or any of that stuff. We don’t say prayers on the eight days Hanukkah. We do give presents. If you want to find a list of holidays go to this link.

Holiday Celebrations – Eden

This year I am really excited for break.

Every year I celebrate Christmas with my family. This year my grandfather is coming to celebrate with me, and my family. Every year on Christmas Eve we go to church at night (around 8:00) and sing Christmas carols with everyone. Usually people go to church at midnight but since I have two little sisters I have to go to the earlier mass. I am really hoping that it is going to be a white christmas.

 My birthday is two days after Christmas (December 27). My uncle and my cousins are coming on my birthday. We are going to have our big Christmas feast on that day because we will be with more family. One of the main dishes that we make as a family is my great grandmother’s (on my mothers side) cracker filling. We usually have the cracker filling on thanksgiving but since we were at my grandmother and grandfather’s (on my dads side) apartment for thanksgiving we did not. I am sooo excited for my birthday.

This year for the New Year I am going to Brooklyn to watch the ball drop (on TV). we are going to  maybe go out to dinner at a fancy place. I am going to sleep the night at my godparents house and maybe take a midnight walk around the city after the ball drops. In the morning we will probably go to the bagel shop, because it is a tradition. We will walk around the city for the rest of the day. At the end of the day we go home and go to bed early.

The author of this photo is Ingo Rickmann and the sight I got it from is http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Schnee_-_2005.JPG

The author of this photo is Ingo Rickmann  – from wikimedia commons 

Holiday Celebration Blog Post – Khalil

Hi I am Khalil and during the winter break I don’t have any Holidays because my religion is Islam. In October I had my holiday called Eid. Eid actually comes twice in one year. The Eid that just passed is the one where Muslims celebrate the sacrifice of the prophet Ibrahim.

On the day of Eid my family has to wake up early to go and pray. The prayers are usually held at a hotel in a ball room. After we pray my family buys french toast bread, and my mom makes french toast for breakfast. My mom’s french toast is the best. After breakfast it is finally time to open presents. Last year I got 350 dollars and a Nexus 7 from, my parents and a laptop. On the actual day of Eid just my immediate family, meaning the people that I live with celebrate together, then the next day I would celebrate with the rest of my family. The best thing about celebrating Eid twice is I get double the presents.

So since I don’t have any holidays coming up I am going to Virgina to go snowboarding and snowtubing. I am really excited to go because it is my first time. I already have all of my gear and all that so I am ready to hit the slopes.   In my opinion the best part about the holidays is the food and getting together with my family. I think it is lots of fun to get together with my cousins and uncles and everyone else to celebrate a holiday.

Snowboard Slide Sports Snowboard Full Hd Desktop Wallpaper Free

Picture from Wallmu

No school in the big snow storm

What I did on the 5 day weekend Challenge
On the weekend with no power, I was forced to not use electronics so since I’m learning guitar I practiced for hours on end. I learned how to play Psalm 100 and The Saints Go Marching In. I worked on Aura Lee too. I got to perfect the rifts from Forget You, Smoke on the Water and Peter Gun. I played my guitar in candle light when we didn’t have power. I got really good and now I can play them all almost flawlessly.

When the snow hit, I thought it was awesome then when the power went out I didn’t think it was that awesome. I went to a Halloween party when the snow was coming down and the snow was so heavy and wet that when my mom and I got to the host’s driveway we couldn’t get up the driveway. We had to stay only a hour or less because of the snow and we had to park in the train station adjacent to their house. I still loved the snow so ,I went out there in the snow and built a snow man. He had grass hair stick arms leaf eyes stick mouth and a staff that he held. He is still there in my back yard staring into the distance.

On Monday, Lukas, his sister Riley and I went trick or treating around Lukas’s development. I was an orc  – a green humanoid creature that is blood thirsty. Lukas was the grim reaper and Riley was a princess. We walked around Lukas’s development cutting across lawns to get to the next house. When we got back to Lukas’s house we sorted out our candy and played a little xbox.

To cope with the power outage, my parents and I heated our house with our wood burning stove and lit candles when it got dark. I had to read 14 pages of my science text book in candle light. Let me tell you it wasn’t a piece of cake. When our power came back on our internet was still out. At least I got to use my wii, I learned how to play wii basketball and  I’m not that bad at it either.

No School Post by Manny

NO SCHOOL

I did not lose power for this whole time believe it or not, even though we had a massacre snowstorm which took out a lot of people’s power in my neighborhood. I did lose Internet for three days straight.

On Saturday morning I was at my sister’s friend, Lauren’s, Bat mitzvah. The morning ceremony was the  initiation, and was being held at The Woodstock Jewish Congregation. My family and I read prayers from the Torah and Prayer Book. It was a very special time for Lauren and her parents cried.

After that my family and I along with the rest of the group, went in to a separate part of the building and ate. They served bagels and salad. There was also an after party at a restaurant called Terrapin. It was really fun because there was food (also bagels), and a bar at which was all free! I ordered about 10 sodas. Later there was dance party and dinner. For dinner there was this weird food that I don’t know the name of it. IT WAS AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The next day, Sunday, I just played in the snow and had a giant snowball fight with my dog! I won because I pegged him right in the face but then he bit me really hard. After that I went inside with Russell, my dog, covered in snow! When I say covered I mean COVERED!!! Russell had snow all over him and it almost looked like he was a white dog!! He shook it all off on me! Then my mom came and took the dog and gave him a hot bath…. She gave me hot chocolate and put mini marshmallows in it just the way I like it. I lost Internet so I couldn’t do my homework but at least my family still had hot water and heat. I really like power outages because me and my sister play flashlight tag in the dark and it is SO much fun!!!!! Unfortunately, we didn’t lose power. I tried to sled outside but even though we got a foot of snow and the snow was too thin once something was on it. My Internet came back on at about 6:00 P.M. so I could do my homework.

On Monday IT WAS HALLOWEEN!!!!!!!!!!! I spent the whole day up until 5 pm carving pumpkins, eating candy, and preparing for Halloween. My dad showed me this funny video called Fire Marshal Bill. At 5 pm my two friends, Owen and Jason came over and we went out to get candy. We had a lot of fun when there were houses that had a bucket full of candy outside their house…….. I got a lot of candy!!!!!! That night I watched TV and ate some of my candy.

No School! By Anna

No School Challenge

There was no school for five days in a row! It was cool to have the weekend go a little longer but it was not all fun. My power was out because of the storm for four of those days we had off and it was terrible. Since there was no power, I had no idea what was going on in the in the world. There could be war and we would not even know it. It was also hard even to sleep. There was no heat so my whole family had to sleep in my living room, with an air mattresses and only a space heater to heat us.

As if that wasn’t bad enough. my dog kept stepping on us, rubbing his snot on us and getting up. We also didn’t have any water in our house so we couldn’t brush our teeth or take a shower. I felt pretty gross. On the second day we finally got to take showers at Vassar so we were clean. There was also an up side to the storm. My family got to spent a lot of time together instead of always getting home and going on electronics. Because there was no light, we got to use candles so that we could see. The candles looked really beautiful.

There was also Halloween. I dressed as Sally from a movie called, Nightmare Before Christmas. It was really weird on Halloween because there was snow and fallen tree limbs all over. It was also weird because we didn’t get to go to as many houses as usual. We usually stay up really late going to many different houses but we couldn’t because a lot of people didn’t have power. I thought that the days off were good but they were also bad. I liked it and kind of hope it will happen again.

No School by Massimo

No School

When I had no school for five days straight (counting the weekend), I had a lot of fun. I had no Internet for most of the time and I was sick during it so I didn’t do much, but it gave me a lot of rest so that was a good thing. I got 18’’ of snow at my house so we could play a lot outside with my cousin who came over.On Saturday, when my mom, my sister and I came back from a party, we tried to get up the hill to our house. My mom was afraid to go up the hill because she saw other people slipping every which way. She decided that she would not drive up, so she called my dad to take us up and leave her car at the bottom of the hill. Finally my dad got to the bottom of the hill ( which felt like hours I might add). When we got to my house I ran to my room and went to bed.

When I woke up, we all went sledding at a friends. It was fun sledding but we had to walk there and it was really cold.  We were walking up two small hills to get to our friend’s house while carrying sleds with snow pants on ( which were not light at all). When we got at the house we had to walk up this really really long and steep driveway. That was where we were sledding,  so we went down and up down and up down and up.

After that it was Monday,  Halloween and I was still sick, so I  just rested  on the sofa the whole time. When it was almost time to go trick-or-treating I didn’t feel much better so I thought that I wouldn’t go, but later on I decided to go. I was really glad I did because a friend was coming with us so that was cool. When we got back, our friend left and I heard from my mom that there was no school the next day, so I stayed up for a long time.

My Experience Being Out of School – by Erika

Blogging Challenge

Since we have been out of school and have had snow, it has been pretty boring and horrible, because I lost power on Saturday evening. We had to get takeout food because our food at home was mostly, almost spoiled. On Monday, the temperature was really cold, and at one point it went down to 48 degrees! I had to sit in my hats, gloves, and my jacket since I was freezing. My feet got really cold, and that’s when my mom and I decided to stay in my dad’s office.

But when we arrived at home a few hours later, the power finally came back on just in time for Halloween! I didn’t want to go trick or treating this year because it was too cold for me to run around in the dark. So instead, I helped my mom hand out candy to the other trick-or-treaters. My mom and I decided that I could hand out the candy to the little kids with their parents or just them, and my mom decided to hand it to the older kids. Believe it or not, Remy and Cory, two boys from my class came to my house!

Anyway, even though I had a bad part of my break, I still had lots of fun handing out and eating the candy that was left over.  These were my experiences of being out of school.