Cedar’s Holiday Post

Four Christmas Trees Stanley Zimny (Thank You for 16 Million views) via Compfight

 

In my family the winter months, December and January in particular, are a time for merrymaking. We celebrate Chanukah, Christmas, and New Years. Each Chanukah my mom and I give each other presents each one of the seven nights. For Christmas I love to set up a tree, decorate it, then put presents under it. I usually get present from my parents, my friends, and Santa Claus. Then for New Years sometimes I stay up all the way till midnight so I’m awake for the beginning of the new year. Also we have a tradition to eat black colored food on New Years. One other New Year’s tradition that we do is we make our own white currant jam from currents that we grow in the summer, and then we eat it on New Year’s Day. I love the winter holidays and can never sleep on Christmas Night because I’m always too excited! What winter holidays do you celebrate? This is a link to a wikipedia page about Christmas. 

Holiday Post BY Zacharias

I celebrate two holidays. The two holidays that I celebrate are Hanukkah and Christmas. Hanukkah is a Jewish holiday that involves God. The part that I like about Hanukkah is that you get a kind of chocolate that is called gilt. It has an eight day span to it and there is a special thing to show each and every day. This special thing is called a Menorah. It holds eight candles and you put one candle for each and every day.

 

Christmas is a completely different story. Christmas is a Catholic Christian holiday. You probably think about it as Santa and presents and a and all. Really Christmas is about the birth of Jesus and not Santa Claus and a Christmas tree but I like to think about it too. Those are the two winter time holidays I celebrate.

The Appearance of the Menorah Base in the Time of the Second Temple only The Appearance of the Menorah Base in the Time of the Second Temple - please no copy pictures - used only for study Daniel via Compfight

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.

Celebrating The Holidays by Ryanne

Let it snow!Creative Commons License Louise LePierres via Compfight

Every year I celebrate Christmas with my family. I have three sisters and one brother; I also have my nephew, niece, and parents to spend christmas with. My family always decorates the christmas tree together a little earlier than others. Every Christmas Eve my family (dad’s side) has a party. I see cousins, aunts, and uncles I only see once a year. I love this because we have dinner with them and celebrate together. At the end of dinner we exchange gifts. The kids put out cookies and put all the presents under the tree for the morning. We go to bed and wait for Christmas morning to come. When I get up, I wake everyone else up and we all go down stairs. I find the presents that are mine and open all of them. We then go to breakfast at my aunt’s (mom’s side) house with my family. We enjoy the breakfast and all day we enjoy family and friends. A week later we celebrate New Year’s and go to my mom’s friends house. We count down 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1- HAPPY NEW YEARS! After this, it’s the end of all the holidays this year. That is how I celebrate my holidays at the end of the year!

 

Please comment how you celebrate. Do you celebrate the same holidays? If not what holiday do you celebrate? Do you even celebrate a holiday during this time? If you don’t, what is your biggest holiday during the whole year? I would love to hear what you have to say. Please leave a url to your blog so I can comment back. Thanks!

~Ryanne      

 

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

Holiday Homework -Grace

  1. The Airport


People rushing all around,
so many planes flying north and south bound,
Los Angeles, Portland, Pittsburgh and more,
“I’ll buy this!” yell shoppers buying gifts in the stores,
So many advertisements flashing here and there,
families coming together from everywhere,
I better walk more rapidly
If I want to keep pace with airport humanity

2.   Rainy days- Acrostic poem
Rain falls on the roof of my house, as I sit with nothing to do
All day rain falls, while I am so blue
I sit and wonder, why does the rain come here?
Not only does it never stop, but it always is so queer
You’ll never know when the rain will come
Dropping down from the thunder that sounds like one big drum
All people think that, the rain is really cool
Yet all the rain does is make splashes in the pool
So think to yourself what does the rain do for you, or better yet what can the rain do.

3.   Winter- Haiku
Fall changes again,
As the first snowflake falls down,
A chill coats the air.

4.   School- Haiku
Soon it’s time for school
Spanish, math, science and more
makes me study more

Winter Vacation – Remy

Each separate piece of writing is a different free write. Free writes are times when you sit down for some amount of time and write about what you are thinking about.

Each picture goes with the piece of writing above it and will tell you the time of day and the weather when I did the free write. Hope you enjoy!!!

Being sick really  is horrible because you just get to sit in bed and do nothing not play outside or anything. I think doing homework is better than being sick. Being sick also makes you feel bad to the point where you think you’re going to die. Right now I’m in this situation and I’m hoping to get better soon because I really hate being sick. 


As I was thinking about being ill I started to wonder how I got ill this time and how I could prevent it next time. I went through all the times I touched something public and didn’t go wash my hands afterwards. The only time I could think of was when I went to the Apple store in NYC and looked and some devices that everybody had touched and then later on in the ate a cookie. That is probably how I got sick this time. Always wash your hands when you see a sink. What are some of your theories of how you got sick?

This picture was taken around midday

on 12/30/11

Sleep. I really like it because it gives me energy. I always wondered how closing your eyes and sleeping can give you energy. I think of sleeping as if I’m shutting myself down like a computer and then turning on in the morning. 

While I’m sleeping I sometimes dream. Did you know that while your dreaming your body is figuring out things that you have read or been told that you didn’t understand. This happened to me the other day when I had just read my report and Joe my math teacher gave me a suggestion and I didn’t understand what he meant. That night I went to bed and I was all of the sudden in Joe’s room doing a little project in class in my dream. When we finished lots of people had rough drawings but there projects were done. Mine was really neat but I wasn’t able to finish the project. When Joe saw that I had not finished he suggested something to me “It’s more important to finish it then make it so neat. That is what he said in my report. That is how I figured out what Joe my math teacher meant in my report. What are some of your dreams?

This picture was taken around midday through

a screen on 12/28/11

Christmas is a wonderful time. Christmas is all about being generous and giving to other people and not just caring about yourself. When you are young you really think that there is a Santa Clause and that he travels around the world giving gifts to everybody. When you are young you see your Christmas tree one night with no presents and the next morning there are presents. I think that Santa Clause is supposed to teach little kids to give and be kind and follow Santa’s lead. Now that I’m older I get gifts for other people with my own money and follow Santa’s lead. Another thing that changes when you get older is that all the presents go under the tree before the day of Christmas. Right now all my presents are under the tree. Same with all the presents that I got for the rest of my family.

Now that I’m older I’m not just buying the most expensive gift, that’s not what Christmas is about. It is about giving something meaningful. When I wrapped my presents this year I wrote messages on them. Plus I made a very special treasure hunt that will lead my sister to her gifts. When I had the idea for the treasure hunt my parents told me that my sister would love it and that the treasure hunt would be better than the gift itself. That is what Christmas is about.

This picture was taken the night of

12/23/11

Sleep. It is a wonderful thing to have a lot of though many people do not get the amount they need. The average person needs at least 8 hours of sleep every day. In my perspective probably ⅓  of us Americans get that much sleep. 


I know that I get at least 9 hours of sleep every night except for once in a blue moon. At my age I should be getting more than that. I actually just researched what percentage of Americans get less than 8 hours of sleep and one source which was the news said 95%. Right now while I’m writing this I felt sleepy since I got about 8 hours of sleep for the past two nights (I guess there were two blue moons, one right after the other). You need your sleep and it is better to get more sleep than to stay up studying for school. If you just go to bed you will do a lot better in school with more sleep and the studying at night will not stick to your brain.

This picture was taken around midday

on 12/21/11

NYC has many big corporations which are not that fun. NYC also has many unique stores that sell very cool and interesting things for many different people which are fun. I am about to leave to go to the train to go to NYC and I’m going to MoMA which is a very fun and interesting museum. We might also go to some cool restaurant with one of my friends. We were going to go with one of my sister’s friends too but she was sick so she is not coming. I’m planning on having a great time though I worried about getting sick again since NYC is densely populated and there are a lot of germs everywhere. In NYC there is a lot of trash on the streets and in many other places. I hope to have fun and not get sick in NYC. Again.

This picture was taken around midday

on 12/19/11